


Boys of Summer

by sharktoothedfawnskinned



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:11:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 49,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharktoothedfawnskinned/pseuds/sharktoothedfawnskinned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>What he wants is for this to be a forever thing, not someplace Harry spent the summer once.  What he wants is for this to be more than a memory.</i>
</p>
<p>(New Jersey beach town AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys of Summer

It's late October and he's still driving by the house.  The beaches are closed for the season, and there's a chilly wind coming off the ocean and through the tree-lined streets farther into town, rattling the leaves down to the ground; it slips through the driver's-side window Louis always leaves a little cracked and curls black cat-tailed around his neck, and when he gets goosebumps he tells himself it's just because it's cold.

He still has Harry's number in his phone, he can always call, and he will, but the truth is that's not what he really wants.  What he wants is to slow his truck rolling by on a chilly October night, the sky dark by 6:45, and see the yellow lamplight spilling through the windows, Harry striding shadowed against it across the lawn.  When he pictures it, Louis has to guess what Harry would wear when the weather turns cold.  When he pictures it, Louis can still only see him in ripped jeans and the world's thinnest t-shirt, arms crossed and shoulders hunched against the wind, smiling as a shiver runs up his spine.

What he wants is for this to be a forever thing, not someplace Harry spent the summer once.  What he wants is for this to be more than a memory.

  
*  


They met on a hot morning in early June, the start of the season, white-haze sunshine through the streets farther from the water, sweat already beading up across Louis' nose as he parked his truck on Shearwater Road, where he wouldn't have to pay a meter, and skated down Ocean Avenue to the marina.  The tide was going out and the regulars were coming back in, pulling their boats into their slips, unloading their catches, and Louis dragged the toe of one sneaker across the asphalt as he approached the gravel lot, slowing till he could pull up his board, checking out the guy sitting at slip nine.  Shirtless, sunburned broad back, immaculate Nike running shorts, less immaculate running shoes and a crumpled up t-shirt sitting on the planks next to him, legs dangling in the water.  Not from around here.  Literally five minutes from being decapitated by the sailboat claiming slip nine for the summer.  

"Dude!" Louis shouted, swinging his skateboard behind him as he jogged across the lot.  " _Dude_."  

No reaction.  Of course the dude had his headphones in.  Of _course_.  

"Dude," Louis said again, when he was close enough to crouch down and catch the wire trailing down the guy's neck with between two fingers, yanking the earbud out of his ear.  "You're about to be run over by a boat."  

"What?  Oh, shit."  He scrambled up and away from the edge of the dock.  "Thanks."

"Well, it woulda bummed me out if I saw a dude get killed before I even started my shift, so."

"I'll come back and get killed in the middle of your shift, then," the guy said, half-smiling, and -- fuck: dimple in one cheek.  Louis looked away and grunted a laugh, then looked back and watched him as he stopped at the edge of the parking lot and slipped his socks and sneakers back on, wobbling first on one foot, and then the other.  He had a butterfly tattoo across his ribs, swallows on his chest and a bunch of doodles down one arm.  "So, you work here?" he asked, still wobbling.

"Yeah.  You don't."

"Nope."  He was a few inches taller; Louis had to shade his eyes to look at him.  He pulled his t-shirt on next, gray with PRINCETON across the front in orange lettering.  Princeton.  Of course.  "What do you do?"

"Sit over there and sell tickets," Louis said, hooking his thumb toward the booth at the end of the marina.

"Tickets to what?"

Louis squinted.  "To executions of dudes who ask too many questions for eight in the morning."

He full smiled this time: two dimples, very straight teeth.  "I don't want to get executed.  Then you saving my life would've been a total waste of time."

"True."

"So I'm gonna go.  But thanks for saving my life."  He leaned forward, dipping his head near Louis' chest, and it took Louis an awkward second to realize he was squinting at the nametag stuck to the pocket of Louis' shirt.  "Lewis."

"It's pronounced Louie."

"Louie."  He nodded.  "Thanks."

"No problem, Princeton."

He looked down at his shirt.  "Harry," he said, dimpling.

"Nice to meet you, Princeton."

He shook his head and turned around, still smiling, kicking gravel across the parking lot as he headed back toward the street.  The hot air rippled in the distance.  "Nice to meet you too, Lewis!" he called over his shoulder.  "See you around!"

  
*  


Most nights Louis went straight home from work -- back to his mom's house, where he'd been staying on the pull-out couch since his apartment got destroyed by Hurricane Sandy -- but that night he walked down the boardwalk and sat on the railing eating a paper cup of French fries, watching the sky turn purple and bruise-blue over the ocean as the sun set behind him.  The lifeguards switched their signs over to OFF DUTY and the crowds started to clear the beach: daytrippers from the next towns over carrying kids and coolers back to their cars, hoping they wouldn't find a ticket stuck to the windshield, and bennies from the city back to the houses off Ocean Avenue they'd rented for the week, or the month, or the whole season.  Louis liked to watch them leave.  

When the beach was empty, and he could hear but not see the waves in the dark, he slipped down off the railing and onto the sand.  He walked toward the water and stood, listening to the waves ahead of him, and the hum and music of the boardwalk behind -- families squabbling and laughing and ready to head home, music from the arcade, screams from the amusement park, teenagers out for the night.  His oldest sister was probably up there somewhere, throwing her arms around her friends.  He pulled out his phone and texted her a smiley face and _be safe_ , then shoved it in the pocket of his shorts.  

He stood there alone for a while, or alone except for the occasional orange flare of someone lighting a cigarette in the distance -- he liked to think they were people who'd lived there all their lives too, who liked to come out and remind themselves that this was home.  His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to see his sister's text: _i won't do anything u wouldnt do!_

_Ugh no_ , he texted back.  _That's exactly what i'm afraid of._

_i'm @ home asshole_ she replied a minute later, and then: _u should be too i miss u._  

He smiled and trudged back up to the boardwalk, let himself get pulled into the tide of the lights and the people.

  
*  


The summer crowds made it feel like a big town, but really it wasn't big at all, and he kept crossing paths with Harry all June.  He stood on line behind Harry at the Wawa, waiting to pay for the turkey sub and Devil Dogs he had every afternoon for lunch, while Harry _verrry slowwwly_ counted out his change to pay for some kind of iced coffee concoction, till Louis finally dumped his sub and his Devil Dogs on the counter next to Harry's coffee with enough crumpled bills to cover both and said, "I got this, Ty," to the kid behind the counter.  Harry turned to Louis with a smile that seemed like he was about to scold him, but he didn't say anything at all, so Louis grabbed his sandwich and his snack cakes and said, "Now you owe me twice, Princeton."

When he left, Harry was still standing at the counter, and waved gently, if gently is a way a person can wave, and it is, Louis discovered that day, because that was exactly how Harry did it.

He literally bumped into Harry coming off the spider ride with his sisters at Brinks, and said "You again!" and immediately felt like a loser about it.  Harry dimpled and shrugged, and asked, "What are you going to save me from this time?"  His sisters took off to the arcade with Harry's cousins, and he and Harry waited for them together under the sign that used to say Brinkerhoff's Amusements in incandescent bulbs but now just said BRINKS EXTREME BEACH on an acrylic lightbox, which Louis felt was a serious downgrade, even if people _had_ been calling it Brinks for as long as he could remember.  "So, you here for the whole summer?" Louis asked.  "Yup," Harry said.  "Plenty of chances to almost die."  The light of the sign made Harry's face glow.  

"I think you might be my guardian angel," Harry said when they took the kids for frozen custard later and Louis cupped his hand under Harry's cone, to catch the dripping chocolate and sprinkles.  "I don't know how you survived this long without me," Louis said, as Harry kissed him on the cheek, and he smiled about it later, when he was in bed, and could still see Harry's lit-up face when he closed his eyes.

He found Harry in the pasta and sauces aisle at the A&P one Saturday afternoon, holding two boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, his brow furrowed.  "What's the difference between original and white cheddar, do you think?" Harry asked.  "One's whiter?" Louis answered, turning the box over in Harry's hand to look at the ingredient list.  "Sure, when I really need it, you can't help me," Harry said, his hand still in Louis' grip, and Louis fake-snarled, "I should have let you die down at the marina" before pushing his cart away.

They finished their shopping together, Harry following with his fingers hooked in Louis' belt loop and tossing his groceries into Louis' cart, and when he got home, Louis found a box of Devil Dogs he didn't remember buying in his bag, and figured he must have paid for some of Harry's stuff by mistake.  It wasn't till he went digging through the cabinet for them at three the next morning, bleary-eyed, that he noticed the note scrawled on the back with the pen from the customer-service counter where Louis had sent Harry to go get the coupon circular: _Now I only owe you once_.

  
*  


Harry showed up at the marina again on a drizzly Monday.  Louis was sitting in the flimsy red-painted plywood booth, his hands pulled into the sleeves of his sweatshirt, his nametag pinned to the hem of his shorts so he could still say he was wearing it.  The tide had been going out for about an hour.  Everything smelled like flounder and rotting seaweed.

"Hey," Harry said, just appearing in his field of vision, worn-thin black t-shirt on, damp hair tousled, leaning with both arms on the little linoleum-lined counter where tourists signed their credit-card receipts.

"Hey," Louis said, suddenly feeling like he had to catch his breath.  "Don't lean too hard on that, this whole thing'll come down."

"Yeah, it doesn't look too sturdy."

"What are you _doing_ here?  Not here to watch the sunrise?"

"Nah.  Did that already."  

Without trying, Louis imagined Harry's morning routine: roll out of a fluffy bed, stretch, run shirtless through the streets, watch the sunrise, shower, eat some fucking granola for breakfast naked standing at the kitchen counter.  Ugh, he wanted to drag himself out of that bed and eat granola with him.  "Do you literally watch the sunrise every morning?  That's disgusting."

"What, you don't?"

"Never seen a sunrise in my life, man."

"Don't knock it till you try it," Harry said, smiling.  They stayed like that for a minute, Harry leaning and looking at Louis with the afterimage of a smile, Louis with his hands in his sleeves, backed all the way up on his folding chair, like despite his mind his body was trying to get away.  

"Seriously, what _are_ you doing here?" Louis asked.

"What, a guy can't take a walk?"

"No offense, but we usually don't get bennies down here," Louis said, and then put on his announcer voice, gesturing with one sweatshirted hand to the sign on the outside of the booth.  "Not unless they're buying tickets for a beautiful afternoon cruise on the _Betty Boo_."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Harry said.  "I just like it here.  Is it weird that I like it here?"

Louis gazed past him at the dump truck backing up to make a u-turn in the lot, its warning beeps distorted in the thick wet air, and then to the water lapping low-tide against the dock, rainbow oil slicks sliming up the wooden posts.  _He_ liked it here, but this was his home.  "Most of you stick to places that are more...picturesque."

"Well, my hometown is very picturesque," Harry said.  "So I'm pretty tired of that.  I like things that are different."

"I bet you do," Louis said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I bet you, like, go on backpacking eco-vacations where you build schools for Third World children.  I bet you're a vegetarian and you date nice hippie girls, and you think it's cool if they don't shave, 'cause you love all the little things that make them _them_.  People are people.  Love is love."

Harry pulled away from the counter, tipping his head back, laughing.  "Okay, well you're not _wrong_."

"Uh-huh."

"But the truth is I just came to say hi.  I came here a couple other times, too, but you weren't around."

"Oh, yeah, this is just a part-time thing.  Like, when they need me.  Just to pick up some extra money."

"So what do you do normally?  No, wait, let me guess you now.  You're _not_ a vegetarian."

Louis nodded.  "Very good."

"And you like to work near the beach in the summer and like, not cut your hair, because most of the time you..are...a teacher.  And _you_ date a nice girl who works at a bank, and summer is your time to go wild together.  It's all very romantic."

Louis shook his head.  " _So_ wrong.  Although I do hate to cut my hair."

"I could tell.  So what was I wrong about?"

"I work here because I know Rick, the guy who owns the place.  I'm also on Buildings & Maintenance for the school district.  They sort of furlough us in the summer, so."

Harry leaned on the counter again, into the booth this time.  The drizzle was coming down harder, and his hair curled around his forehead.  "I was close!  I knew you worked at a school.  You're good with kids, schools always attract people who are good with kids."

"I mean, I kind of wanted to be a teacher," Louis said.  "I just got...off-course.  Do you want to come in?  Get out of the rain?"

"Definitely."

Louis unlatched the side door, held it open for the second it took Harry to slip in, and then they were in the booth together, bodies nearly touching, Louis' chin almost resting on Harry's shoulder.  "Sorry there's only one chair," Louis murmured.  Talking at normal volume seemed weird in such a small space.

"Yeah, it's not as nice in here as I thought it would be."

"Shut up."

"No, I'm kidding, it's perfect.  It's just that the company is shit."

"I will take you back to slip nine and drown you."

"You wouldn't."  Harry lifted his hand and pinched Louis' side.  "So what else was I wrong about?  Your girlfriend doesn't work at a bank.  No, wait, don't tell me -- one of those souvenir shops?  The cute ones, with the stained glass wind chimes?"

Louis took a deep breath.  This was the worst part, the part nobody ever told you when you were worrying about coming out the first time -- that coming out was endless, again and again every time you met someone new.  "No, no girlfriend," he said.

Harry cocked his head.  "Really?  You seem like a heartbreaker."

"Yeah, well, if I was it wouldn't be with a girl."  Louis gave it a second to sink in.  He had come up with a lot of ways to say _I'm gay_ without saying "I'm gay" over the years, and it only ever took a second.

"Oh," Harry said, and even though they weren't touching, Louis could feel his body go tense as if they were: Harry wanted to step back because he was surprised, but didn't want to step back because he didn't want Louis to think he was afraid.  Louis let him off the hook, stepped back himself and leaned against the counter, crossed his legs at the ankles.  Harry opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then shut it again.

"What?" Louis asked.

"Nothing."

Louis narrowed his eyes.

"No, no, not like that.  I was just gonna say, like, that's good, but it doesn't matter, does it?  If I think it's good.  I mean I would be mad if I came out to you and you were like, 'Oh, that's good, because...'"

"Because what?"

"Because nothing.  That's why I didn't say it.  Because nothing."

"This is such a fucking weird coming out."

"Well," Harry said.  "At least I'm memorable."

"That you are," Louis told him.  "That you are."  He maneuvered himself around Harry, still not touching, and sat on the folding chair.  Harry seemed to follow him, his body curving in response to Louis' body curving, like fish follow each other in a school, and Louis wasn't sure what Harry was doing until Harry was in his lap, saying, "We can make this one-chair thing work."  It took a second, but Louis wrapped his arms around Harry's waist, leaned his face against Harry's back, right between his shoulderblades, feeling the warm skin through the softness of his shirt.  

  
*  


They had lunch at The Marlin, down the road, taking one of the tables by the scratched-up windows and watching the rain pit the gray-green waves just off the end of the jetty.  ("Do vegetarians eat fish?" Louis had asked.  "No," Harry said, "but I'm not a very good vegetarian.")  Harry grabbed the plastic cup of crayons left out from when a family with kids had had the table, and started drawing on his placemat, swirly blue water and orange fish with long trailing fins.

"So, literally, how old are you?" Louis asked.

Harry looked up at him, big dimpled smile.  "Twenty-three.  You?"

"Twenty-five."

"Ugh, so _old_."

Louis plucked a red crayon out of his hand.  "Go fuck yourself."

"I _could_ ," Harry said, looking around innocently, "but it's nicer if someone else does it instead."

Louis wrinkled his nose and bent over his own placemat, starting a little Pac-Man ghost.  A collection of little Pac-Man ghosts: red, purple, green, orange, whatever colors he could steal out of Harry's hand.  He glanced across the table, at Harry biting his bottom lip, adding long waving green grass to the edges of a pink and yellow beach.  

"So, what else about you?" Harry asked after their lunch arrived.  He had shifted his placemat out of the way when the waitress came to set their clam chowders down, and now he and Louis were separating a basket of fries into two little mountains, one doused in vinegar for Louis, and one for Harry to dunk in ketchup.  "You're twenty-five, and?"

"And?  What do you want to know?"

"You said you wanted to be a teacher but you got off-track.  How?"

"That's a really long story."

Harry shook the ketchup bottle.  "You don't want to tell me."

"I mean, I don't care.  I'm not ashamed or anything.  It just really is a long story, in the end."

"I want to hear it."

Louis watched as he poured the ketchup out with the same concentration he had given to his drawing, and to choosing a macaroni & cheese mix at the A&P.  "All right, well, short version I guess is I wasn't such a great kid."

"I don't believe that."

"Well, you're very young, Harry.  Maybe when you're older and wiser like me--"

"Shut it."

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" Louis asked, reaching over to dunk one of his fries in Harry's ketchup.

"I do, I do, go on."

"Okay, well, when I was thirteen I was arrested for possession.  I was young enough to get it expunged from my record after I finished my community service, which is why I can still work at the school, but because I was a prick to the arresting officer, the judge sent me to juvie for two weeks.  It was supposed to, like, scare me straight -- no pun intended -- but all it did was make me more careful about cops.  I didn't really stop doing shit till I was almost nineteen.  I guess I didn't think before then that it would matter.  Like, if I wanted to change my act, I had all the time in the world, and then one day all my friends were in jail and my mom wouldn't let me see my sisters and if I got arrested it would be as an adult, and I thought, _You don't really have any more time._   Like, _This is already your life._ "

"Yeah," Harry said, his voice more hoarse than Louis had ever heard it.  "Wow."

Louis swallowed hard and looked out at the rain splashing against the ocean.  "I guess I do kind of mind telling you.  Thought I was braver than I am."

"What?  No.  It's okay, I don't, like, _care_.  And anyway, you were young."

"No, don't justify it.  I was young when I was arrested, but plenty of that time, I was old enough to know better.  I was a little _shit_ to my mom, and, I don't know, right at the end I was helping some of my friends sell, and I guess I am ashamed of that part.  We were just fucking around with weed, but these benny kids would come down to see us, and like..."

"Yeah," Harry said again.  He had shrugged his shoulders up, crossed his arms over his ribs where the butterfly tattoo was visible as a shadow through his shirt, and Louis pulled his hands into his sweatshirt sleeves again, all of a sudden there seemed to be a draft through the restaurant that wasn't there before.  Harry shook his head.  "I'm not trying to justify anything, but from experience?  Most of those kids have probably done way worse."

"From experience?"

"What, you think we don't have dirtbags in prep school?  The amount of times I bought pills off some kid dealing out of his gym locker, or the trunk of his fucking BMW -- none of it's _right_ , I'm just saying, don't walk around like you're the only one that ever did shit wrong, either.  Everybody's done something, _especially_ the people who act like they never would, that's why I don't like to judge."

"Of _course_ you don't, tree-hugger."

Harry smiled, and his foot down on top of one of Louis' Vans under the table, pressing just hard enough to not hurt.  

"That's not very peace-and-love of you," Louis said.

"Well, maybe you don't have me pinned down like you think you do."

"I never said I have you pinned down."

"No, but you _act_ like you do."

Louis wiggled his foot out from under Harry's, even though what he really wanted was to slide closer, tangle his legs with Harry's, his knees between Harry's knees, his calves against Harry's calves.  "So tell me about you.  You know all my story now."

"That's not all your story."

"Ugh, stop being so fucking Zen."

Harry shook his head, setting his jaw but rolling his eyes.  "That's not what Zen is."

It was Louis' turn to roll his eyes, and he did it more theatrically, letting his head fall back. "Fuck _me_ , Harry, Jesus."

"Fine!  I don't know, I don't have a lot of story to tell.  Grew up part in New York, and part in Connecticut."

"New York like the city, or New York like upstate?"

"New York the city.  Manhattan.  Upper West Side."

"Oh, _well_.  I don't fucking know all the geographic divisions."

Harry smiled, watching his own hand as he swirled a fry in ketchup; it meant Louis couldn't look directly at him, meant his eyes were hidden beneath his eyelashes.  "It means rich but not too rich."

"Never would've guessed."

"Sister went to Sacred Heart when we moved to Connecticut, so I went to Notre Dame.  Ran track.  Was _not_ one of the kids with the BMWs."

"No, you had a Ferrari."

"Volkswagen.  Beetle."

Louis laughed so hard his whole body scrunched up with it.  " _Of_ fucking _course_."

"So _anyway_ that's pretty much how I got into Princeton."

"What did you study?"

"Sociology.  Public policy."

"This is like fucking pulling teeth.  When did you graduate?"

"A little over a year ago."  He looked up, half smile, and raised an eyebrow.  "A semester early and everything."

"I'm so impressed.  No, genuinely!  And what do you do?"

"I got a job on a Senate campaign, in New York, but after we won I just -- well, I quit."

"You fucking _quit_?"

"I know.  I _know_!"  He was still dragging the fry through the ketchup, swirling it in figure-eights.  "I just, like, I thought, _Okay, politics_ , like, _I'll really be able to make a difference_ , but it turns out you fucking _can't_?  Nobody wants to do fucking anything.  Nobody wants to _listen_ to anybody.  I mean actually our candidate was pretty good, but the whole situation..."

"No offense," Louis said, "but you had to actually get into politics to figure that out?  Maybe you're not as smart as I thought you were.  Are you gonna eat those fries or what?"

Harry pulled the fry out of the ketchup and held it out toward Louis, who opened his mouth like a baby bird, and let him place it gently on his tongue.  

"See, you made a difference," Louis said, mouth full.  "You just fed the hungry."

"No, it's not funny, though.  Like, you go around saying, 'There are people who need help.  They need schools.  They need healthcare.  We're killing them,' and then these guys tell you they don't deserve help.  'They should help themselves!'  And nobody listens to the studies that say that's not possible, that you need to provide a framework to _make_ that possible, they just walk around like, 'Well, my family worked hard to get where we are, they can work hard to get to where we are too,' and it's like, no, idiot, they can't, because your family fucking burned all the bridges behind them, so no one could take their castle.  And now you're burning all the bridges we're trying to rebuild."

Louis propped his chin on one fist, and didn't say anything, just watched Harry's hand as he dragged another fry in swirls through the ketchup, watched the muscles in Harry's forearm rippling softly beneath his skin, followed the path of his tattoos up to his rolled sleeve, the line of his collarbone out from beneath the washed-thin cotton, the sensitive skin of his neck up to the shadow of his jaw, and waited.

"You're awfully quiet, for once," Harry said, not looking up.

"Just waiting."

"For what?"

"What the rest of the story is."

"Well, keep waiting," Harry said.  "I thought about maybe going to law school, because sometimes you can change things through the courts, or -- like, you're not going to believe this, but I thought about maybe becoming a teacher.  Like, maybe just stop trying to change things with this generation and like, just try and teach kids to be fucking _nice,_ you know?  To educate themselves and care about people and maybe they'll grow up better than we did."

"You seem like you grew up pretty okay," Louis said.

"No, yeah, I know.  I'm not an asshole most of the time.  I just get pissed off about things, and then I get pissed off because like, what right do _I_ even have to get pissed off?  What right do I even have to be the one trying to change things?  What makes me better than all the assholes walking around the Senate telling people they don't deserve help?"

"Feed the hungry," Louis said, nodding toward the fries, and Harry leaned across the table to place another in Louis' waiting mouth.  "So, no offense, but I think I've got you pinned down pretty good."

Harry shrugged.  "Well, maybe I haven't told you everything, yet."  

"So there _is_ a rest of the story," Louis said.  "I knew you were holding out on me."

"Maybe you're braver than you think you are."

" _Jesus_."  Louis closes his eyes.  "You are literally the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

"I like that," Harry says.

"What, being a form of fucking spiritual torture?"

"No.  Being something that happens to someone."

Harry paid the bill when Louis got up to go to the bathroom, not even a chance to argue about splitting it, biting his lip and widening his eyes when Louis came back out and caught him signing the receipt.  "At least you have the decency to look guilty about it," Louis said, standing next to Harry's seat and ruffling the damp waves of his hair.  Harry smiled down at the table and leaned his head into Louis' touch, and then further, nuzzling against Louis' stomach as Louis laughed, because the tip of Harry's nose and the warmth of Harry's breath through his sweatshirt were enough to get him where he was ticklish.  "It's not even a pride thing," Louis said as Harry stood to leave, and when his back was turned Louis grabbed the placemat drawing off the table and folded it in fours so it would fit in his back pocket.  "It's just that between this and the Devil Dogs you don't owe me anymore."

"Not for now," Harry said.  "But you never know what dangers await."  Louis shook his head and made his way toward the door, dragging the rubber soles of his sneakers against the green checkerboard linoleum floor as he turned sideways to squeeze through the other tables, hearing Harry apologize to the people whose chairs he was tripping over behind him, and he had to wait a few seconds at the door, watching the raindrops drip down the glass and splash on the road beyond, for Harry to catch up.  When they finally stepped outside, Louis pulling his sweatshirt up over his head and tucking his arms in against his body, he felt Harry's fingers dip into his back pocket, tugging at the folded placemat, and heard Harry's voice closer than he expected against his ear, saying, "By the way, I saw that."

  
*  


Louis' next day off, they went down to the beach, and Louis didn't even mind the crowds.  All he remembered after was his field of vision bright and narrowed, white sand below, white hot sky above, and Harry's strong browned body in the center of it, as he squinted into the sun.  They went down to the water and stood in the waves, Harry dunked his head under, Harry shook his hair out like a dog.  "Louis," he said, still and calm standing with the water waist-high.  "I think I'm drowning."  The sunlight glinted off the waves, up onto their shining skin, up into Louis' eyes.  "What?" Louis said.  "I think I'm drowning," Harry said again.  "Save me."  And he held his arms out so Louis could grab him, could drag him through the water and hold him tight like he might sink.  "See, now I owe you again," Harry said, he had his knees bent so he was shorter than Louis, looking up at him as Louis wrapped his arms around his chest.

Up on the beach, stretched out on the threadbare towels Louis had brought from his mom's house, Harry rolled over and took Louis' hand, slipped his other palm beneath Louis' elbow, carefully turned Louis' arm so he could see his tattoos.  Louis let him, kept his eyes closed, kept his breathing even, felt so relaxed with the heat of the sun soaking into his body and Harry's fingertips ghosting over the skin of his arm he thought he might fall asleep.  Harry traced the knotted rope, the stick man, the compass, the stag on his shoulder, the shadowed beating heart.  He opened his eyes to find Harry leaning over him, broad shoulders blocking out the sun, wet hair slicked back and Wayfarers hiding his eyes, as he touched his fingertips to the _It Is What It Is_ across Louis' chest. 

They shared cheese sandwiches Harry had packed in his backpack -- mozzarella and pesto, brie and apples and apricot salsa, yellow American and grainy mustard, and Louis would not let him hear the end of it, imagining him carefully assembling the most interesting cheese sandwiches he could think of at seven in the morning, fresh from a run and a warm shower, except when Louis teased him he left out the part about the shower -- and a bag of chips and the chocolate chip cookies Louis' sisters had baked but not finished eating the night before and a shopping bag of clementines.  When they got down to the last orange Harry pouted his bottom lip out till Louis rolled his eyes and handed it over.  "Oh, now I owe you twice," Harry said, smiling.  They napped in the sunshine, or Louis napped and Harry read, and Louis woke up to Harry softly shaking him with one hand flat against his back:  "Louis.  Louis wake up."  Louis rolled over, asked "What?" and shaded his eyes.  "I think I'm getting sunburn," Harry said, even though his skin looked soft and brown as ever.  "Can you put sunscreen on my back?"  Louis sat up and squeezed SPF30 into his hand, spread it across Harry's shoulderblades and down his spine, and yup -- his skin was as silky as Louis imagined.  "Owe you three times," Harry said when he was done, and took the sunscreen bottle back.  "Mm," Louis said, noncommittally, and reached out and rubbed his hand down Harry's back again, for no real reason.  

At night, when he went home, that night and other nights after they had spent the day together, Louis let himself think about Harry, while he helped do the dishes and fold the laundry he remembered Harry's soft skin, imagined catching the hem of one of those soft t-shirts between his fingers to pull it up and expose more.  In bed, in the dark, he closed his eyes and saw the bright sunshine again, the blue-green waves, the water foaming around Harry's warm brown body as he sat in the sand.  In the shower, after he went out for a run of his own, dripping sweat in the black humid night, he'd try to guess what Harry's jawline would feel like as he cupped his palm against it, how firm Harry's ass would be in his grip as they kissed, how Harry would be beautiful, and wrecked, and sweet, and _his_ , he stood under the cool spray with his eyes closed, barely breathing, and found his hand sliding down his belly to his erection, before he opened his eyes and told himself to think about something else.

  
*  


"Do you ever go out?" Harry asked.  They were down at the marina, Louis in the booth, on his folding chair, totaling the receipts for the afternoon's _Betty Boo_ reservations, the door on the side open to let in the warm breeze, and Harry on the ground in the doorway, sitting with his legs pulled up and his arms circled around them, hands clasped in front, keeping himself twined up small enough to fit where Louis could see him.  

"Huh?" Louis asked.

"It seems like you just work, and maybe go to the beach, and hang out with your sisters, and that's it."

"That _is_ about it," Louis said.

"That's all you ever do?"

Louis looked up from the pile of receipts, pressing one hand down on top to keep them from blowing away.  "Mostly, why?"  Harry had his head tipped back to watch Louis with wide eyes, looking like there was something he really wanted.

"Just wondering."

Louis quirked his mouth.  Harry looked away, tilting to watch the water, which was dark blue and rippled with sharp-cresting waves under the sunshine, out past the booth.  He was wearing a faded white Rolling Stones t-shirt today, creamy pale against his tan, rolled-up denim shorts, running shoes, an American flag-print bandana tied into a headband to hold his hair back.  Louis let his gaze linger on Harry's thighs, dusted with soft coppery hair just a shade darker than his summer skin, then turned back to his receipts.

"Like, just curious about what you do for fun," Harry said.  "Where you like to go."

"I honestly don't do a lot of going out, but I guess I like Tiki Lounge sometimes.  Or Nina's.  Or there's a...place I like to go to sometimes in Asbury."

"A place?"

"A gay bar."

"Ooo," Harry cooed, the same way Louis' little sisters did when they were teasing their friends about having a crush.  "The hook-up."

"No.  Not really.  Sometimes.  A little bit.  In some dude's car."  Louis covered his face with his free hand, and stood up to grab the old calculator off the shelf.

"In some dude's _car_?"  Out of the corner of his eye, Louis saw Harry unclasp his hands and tip himself to the side, so he was in the booth and on his knees when Louis turned to face him.  "Who _are_ you?  Details!"

"Not while you're in that position," Louis said.  Harry was grinning wide, dimples, shining eyes, red lips, Louis pulled his hands back to keep from touching his fingers to Harry's flushed mouth, from hooking his fingertips just enough to see how that soft bottom lip would give -- just an instinct, just a really weird, _strong_ instinct.  

"Why?" Harry asked.  "Too sexy?"  He leaned forward, chin against Louis' hip, and his hands touched softly to the backs of Louis' knees, his fingertips sliding in under the hems of Louis' shorts.

Louis felt himself getting hard, just a couple inches away from Harry's face, and felt like he couldn't catch his breath, all at the same time, he stepped back till he was almost against the wall of the booth and reached down to pull Harry's hands away from his thighs.  "Stop!  This is really uncomfortable."

Harry's face fell.  "I'm sorry, Lou."  He stood, grabbing the counter and hauling himself up as fast as he could, leaning himself against the opposite wall.  "I didn't mean -- I'm so sorry."

"What were you _thinking_?  Do you think just because I'm gay you can just--?"  He wasn't even sure what the end of that sentence was.

"No!  No.  No."  Harry held his hands up, universal sign for surrender, universal sign for _I don't want to hurt you_.  "I'm so sorry, I was just being dumb, I'm sorry, I flirt with everybody, all my friends make fun of me, and I just, like, go over the top with it -- like, literally every one of them has made out with me, I don't mean it to be, like -- you were right, when you said I just like people, people are people, you were right, and I forgot you don't actually know me that well, and I don't actually know _you_ that well, and I can't --"

"All right!  Okay.  You're forgiven."  Louis shook his head, half at Harry and half to clear it, and turned to re-shuffle the receipts.

"Really, though, I am sorry.  I just feel like I've known you forever, I forgot you don't, like, know all my jokes and--"

"Seriously, Harry, it's _okay_.  You're making it weirder now."

"Okay.  Sorry."

Louis shot him a look.

"Sorry," Harry said, realizing as he said it, and clapping a hand over his mouth.  "Sorry!"  He started laughing, eyebrows up, eyes squeezing shut, and he bent forward, fingertips against the floor, and crouched down.  "It's never-ending!  I say sorry and then I have to say sorry!"  He giggled through the whole sentence.

Louis started to laugh too, covering his mouth with both hands, because for some reason he felt like he was supposed to hold it in.  "Oh my God."  He crouched down too, or let his legs give out beneath him, really, it wasn't anything as coordinated as a crouch, and then he sat, scooting back across the floor till he was hidden under the counter, so if any bennies came to the booth they wouldn't know he was there.  "Oh my God, I can't breathe."  He looked over at Harry, who was just kneeling on the floor now, laughing, doubled over, arms wrapped around his stomach.

"I'm gonna die of laughing," Harry gasped.  "Why is this so funny?"

Louis reached a hand out toward him.  "Come hide with me."  He grabbed Harry's arm and helped him crawl across the floor, pulled him in close under the counter, so they were both sitting with their backs to the wall, and took two deep breaths, before glancing over at Harry and starting all over again, snorting out a laugh and covering his mouth, his eyelashes matting together with tears.  

"Oh my God," Harry said.  "Oh my God, I feel like I'm high."  He had broken down into giggles now, just tiny stuttering laughs between sharp intakes of breath, and Louis closed his eyes and focused on that sound, the rasp of air as Harry pulled it into his lungs, the little whimpering noises he made as he tried to calm down.  "Oh my God," Harry said.  "Louis, I love you."

Louis laughed again, but different this time, a laugh he laughed on purpose, before leaning his head back and breathing deep and even.  He was exhausted.  He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, then turned to look at Harry, who was still giggling but starting to slow, resting his head against the wall and panting.  He chose to ignore it.  He chose not to say _I love you_ back.  He ran his fingertips across the floor until he found Harry's hand, and twined their fingers together.

  
*  


They didn't plan to spend the fourth of July together, but they ended the night with each other anyway.  Louis found Harry at the boardwalk, standing by the railing with his face tilted up to watch the fireworks over the water, and normally Louis wouldn't even have been there, with the crowds -- the last time he came down to see the fireworks was high school, he'd get stoned under the creaking planks with his asshole friends and feel up some girl he didn't really want, and try not to think about how his dad used to bring him out to see the fireworks when he was little, how they'd always get good spot up above at the railing -- but his sisters had wanted to come, and this was the first time his mom thought they were all old enough, so he was walking down the boardwalk with his mom and the girls, his oldest sister behind him texting, one of the twins clamped onto his arm like a crab.  It was dark, and noisy, and the flashes were blinding and the hot wind was blowing shoreward, the ashes and the paper raining down on the crowd the same way they did every year when Louis was a kid, and he was squinting against all of it but he still managed to spot Harry, wavy hair halo-tinged with firework green, in the middle of all those people.

And he shook his sister off his arm and nudged her back to his mom, saying, "Mom, gimme a minute?" and his mom nodded, because she was good, she still had so much trust in him, even though he didn't really deserve it, after all the shit he pulled when he was young, and he smiled at her and pushed through the crowd, ignoring the bennies that turned around to give him dirty looks, and when he got to Harry he grabbed him by the arm, saying, "Hey."  "Hey," Harry said back, turning to him, looking slightly dazed, like it was hard to focus on Louis after all those explosions in the sky, or -- no, like Louis _was_ one of those explosions in the sky, and Louis realized that was the way Harry always looked at him, not just tonight, not just fireworks, and Louis realized how good it made him feel every time.  "You said you like different, right?" Louis asked, and it took Harry a second to remember but Harry said "Yeah," and Louis said "There's another fireworks show at midnight.  Meet me down by the Rita's on Ocean Avenue, and I'll show you something."  "Okay," Harry said, nodding, and he looked like he might say more, but Louis slipped back into the crowd, glad for once in his life that he was so short, because he could disappear.

Which was how he ended up standing under an orange streetlamp at midnight on the fourth of July — fifth of July, he guessed, technically, his sisters back at the house tucked safely in bed, his mom flicking off the television and the window air-conditioner, and cleaning up their ice-cream sticky dishes alone — realizing he should have told Harry to meet him earlier, because the fireworks were about to start and it would take them a while to get where he wanted to go.  And then there came Harry strolling out of the darkness across the street, into an orange glow of his own, and Louis couldn’t remember if the streetlights had been on the whole time or if the lamps were just flickering on as Harry walked beneath them, Harry bringing the whole thing to life. “Hurry up!” Louis called, holding out one hand to motion for Harry to cross the street already, and before he realized what was happening Harry was sprinting across the street and grabbing Louis’ hand, and Louis took off like a shot, running down Ocean Avenue with his hand in Harry’s, past the kids he used to be drinking against the hoods of their shitty cars, past the old couples out for a late-night stroll, down to the dead-end against the jetty, and a hard left onto the gravel path that led down onto the dark wild beach, not a pretty expanse of sand but tangled beach grass that got drowned with every high tide, the air was more humid here, and smelled more oppressively of the ocean, the sharp stink of salt and rotting something, probably leftover sea-soaked chicken guts that the crabbers tossed out on their ways home that afternoon. Harry’s boots -- why was he wearing boots? -- skittered on the pebbles because Louis didn’t give him any warning before they turned, and Louis slowed, turned around to grab him with both hands: “Watch out, it’s kind of slippery.” “No kidding,” Harry said, panting, Louis could feel Harry’s sides heaving against his palms. Behind them, he heard the first booms of the fireworks, and what little light reached them cast a pale red glow across Harry’s face. “Just over here,” Louis said, letting go of Harry’s sides and pointing a little ways down the shore, and Harry let Louis lead him past the piled-up lumber, past the shadowed yellow backhoe with its head drooping like it was asleep, to the place where they dumped the bones of the boardwalk rides they’d been pulling out of the ocean since Sandy.

There was an old Scrambler car, they couldn't see the color in the dark but Louis knew it used to be sparkly purple paint, faded and peeling after a winter underwater, and Louis jimmied open the rusty latch and swung the creaking door of it open, motioning for Harry to step inside. “Your chariot awaits,” he said, and Harry nodded to him and climbed in, like this was the most normal thing in the world. Most of the floor was rusted out, and the old faux-leather seat was gone, lost to the ocean, so they had to sit on the crossbar and prop themselves against the metal back, it wasn't the most comfortable spot in the world, but: “Look,” Louis said, nodding out toward the water as several rockets shot up from the barge by the boardwalk, and as they exploded sizzling white and bright blue in the black sky, each one was reflected, full and shimmering, on the black waves of the ocean. “Whoa,” Harry breathed. “That’s a nice view.” “It’s my little secret,” Louis said, thinking back to the nights when he’d sneak away from his friends, thinking back to his dad bringing him out here at midnights, carrying him sleepy-headed in his pajamas to see this, “so don’t tell anybody.” “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry said, and for a minute he let go of the crossbar, and his hand was cold from gripping the metal, but Louis didn’t flinch when Harry ran his fingers across his back, holding him softly by the waist.

  
*  


Later that night, after the crowds had gone, after the last steel rolldown shutters had been locked over the last boardwalk storefront, later enough that it was almost morning, later enough that the sky was turning from black to blue, Louis and Harry sat on the boardwalk across from the sweet shop, on one of the sections that hadn't been torn up by Sandy, on the same splintery planks that had been there all Louis' life.  

They faced each other, knees pulled up, legs tangled together -- if Louis flexed his foot, he could press his instep against the back of Harry's thigh, and when Harry kept tensing and relaxing his calves, Louis could feel the roll of Harry's muscles against his own.  

"You okay?" Harry asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You just seem a little off.  Quiet."

"I'm okay."

"Okay," Harry said.  He leaned forward, reached like he was about to grab hold of Louis' legs, then stopped and said, "Can I?"

"Yeah.  You can touch me, it was just the -- where you had your face, that time."

Harry nodded, and cupped his hands over the tops of Louis' knees, using them to hold himself up as he stretched his back.  Louis had been sitting with his own hands clasped in front of him, arms around his legs, but he unhooked his fingers from each other now and took hold of Harry's forearms.  When he was finished stretching, Harry stayed bent forward, head down so Louis couldn't see his face, hands still warm against Louis' legs.

"Are _you_ okay?" Louis asked.

"Tired," Harry said.  "Not used to staying up all night anymore."

"Take a nap."

"On the boardwalk?"

"I'll watch you."

Harry untangled their legs and swiveled his long body -- "Ow, butt splinter," he said, leaning to one side and swiping a hand across the seat of his ripped jeans as he turned -- then stretched out along the boards, hands folded over his stomach, eyes closed.

"I don't know how you can sleep like that," Louis said, looking at the back of Harry's head against the hard wood.

"Well, I can't if you keep talking."

"You mean you aren't lulled by the sound of my musical voice?"

"You sound like a fifty-year-old truckstop hooker right now.  You sound like you've spent your whole life chainsmoking and sucking cocks."

Louis coughed.

"Oh God, _have_ you spent your whole life chainsmoking and sucking cocks?"

"I don't smoke."

Harry laughed, not opening his eyes, and Louis studied him like there would be a quiz later: he laughed with his chin tipped back, mouth open wide, all those beautiful teeth, and when he was done a little smile stayed on his lips like the afterimage of the sun when you closed your eyes.  "But yeah, I am," he said.

"You are what?"

"Lulled by the sound of your voice."

Louis didn't even decide to do it, he just felt it happening, he leaned over as quick as anything, with his hands flat against one of the fracturing boards as he lowered his body down and touched his lips to Harry's forehead.

Harry opened his eyes.  Louis was already sitting up.  "What was that for?" Harry asked.

"You're sweet," Louis said.

"So are you," said Harry.  He reached out to touch Louis' face with the back of his hand, rubbing his knuckles against the scruff growing in under Louis' jaw.  He closed his eyes again.  "Now I owe you so many times."

"What, for watching you sleep?"

"Mmm, yeah, for that."

It was quiet for a few minutes, nothing but the sound of the wind and the waves, and Harry snoring softly next to him.  Louis looked down at him: eyelashes flat against his cheeks, pink lips parted, hair ruffled by the breeze.  If you had asked him ten years ago where he would be right now, he never would have guessed here, sitting on the boardwalk next to a beautiful sleeping boy, the smell of fourth of July fireworks still in the air, bits of ash still littering the sand, firecracker paper still skittering across the boards in the wind.  He never would have guessed he'd still be in this town, and seen it half-destroyed by a hurricane, the places he knew like the backs of his hands washed away and rebuilt again, memories he could never revisit no matter how many times he came back.  He never would have guessed he'd be okay, and feeling love.

He got up and walked a little ways down the boardwalk, finding a spot between benches at the railing, where if he leaned out over the metal bars he could see the ocean stretching from horizon to horizon under the lightening blue sky.  The warm humid wind blew straight against his face, and pushed his hair back from his forehead.  He closed his eyes, smelling the salt and the sea grass under the boardwalk and the morning heat, then opened them again and looked back at Harry: still asleep, still safe.  He closed his eyes, and turned his face toward the ocean.

He wasn't sure how long he had been there -- not too long, the sky still wasn't much lighter -- closing his eyes and leaning into the wind, then glancing back to check on Harry, when he heard Harry's voice behind him: "Lou?"

"Over here," Louis called, turning around.  Harry stood, stretched, and ambled over.  "Is it almost sunrise yet?" Louis asked as he got closer.

Harry looked up at the blueness of the sky, fading into orange around its rim.  "Almost."

"What do we do?"

"Watch.  Wait."

"Aw, my least favorite things."

Harry placed his hand on Louis' shoulder, and gave him a shove.  "Hush."

Louis cocked an eyebrow dismissively, then looked out over the water again, hugging the railpost against his ribs.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"I told you, you just seem off.  Like you're halfway to somewhere else right now."

"I'm just thinking about things."

"What things?"  Harry settled in against the railing next to Louis, but facing away from the water, his back against the cool metal.  

"Well, it's like -- it's different for you, for the summer people, this is someplace you go to get away from your real life.  But for me, this is my real life.  This is all of it.  This beach, and the fireworks, that's not a memory for me, that's every year, all year, all of my life.  And it's fun, you know, like it's nice to come out here and watch the fireworks and have fun, but it's also a lot of memories.  Like, I remember coming out here when I was a kid.  I remember hanging out under the boardwalk with my friends when I was like fifteen, and making fun of all the bennies, and drinking beers Tim's brother got us, and just all the shit I got into, and I feel so far away from the person I used to be, but I also feel really close?  And then I remember when I was little, and I remember remembering that when I was older, too, like not wanting to think about it, not wanting to think about my dad, and how he used to bring me out here, and now I don't really mind thinking about it, but it's weird because I remember when I did.  And I just, like, I can't go back?  My dad was the one who showed me that spot where we watched the fireworks, and there didn't used to be a fucking Scrambler car out there.  There used to be a lot more beach before Sandy."

"Why didn't you want to think about your dad?"

"Oh, he fucked off when I was like seven."

"Me too.  I mean, my parents split up.  When I was seven."

Louis glanced over at him.  "I thought you were here with your whole family?"

"Yeah, my mom and my stepdad.  That was when we moved to Connecticut, when she got married."

"That must have been weird."

Harry shrugged.  "It was kind of good.  I didn't have to spend as many weekends at my dad's, so."

"You didn't want to see him?"

"I don't know, he's just -- it's weird.  It's not great.  And I don't know how to say no to him, when he asks me to come over there."

"Yeah.  Yeah.  I haven't heard from my dad in, like, _years_ , and a lot of the time I think it's better."

"If you think it's better, it probably is."

"Yeah," Louis said, slowly.  "I mean, it wasn't like an outright thing, not like he said 'You're no longer my son,' but basically when he stopped talking to me was when I told him I was gay."

He heard Harry breathe in sharp next to him.  "God."

"I mean, I still heard from him a few times, but it just kind of...petered out.  And I could tell that was what it was.  And for a while I was really mad about it, and then one day I was like, _oh, wait a minute, I feel better without him_."

"Yeah, I kind of feel like I would feel the same way.  Like I would just feel better if I didn't have to deal with my dad anymore?  But then I feel really, really awful, because if anything happened to him, I just -- I don't know what I would do.  I would miss him so much.  I don't want to be around him, really, but I would miss him."

Louis turned so he was facing the same direction as Harry, staring across the boardwalk at the locked-up souvenir shops and custard stands.  "I get it."

"Do you?"

"It's just really weird to think that like, someone really shitty gave you things you really love.  You know?  Like you wouldn't be the person you are today if that shitty person hadn't been around.  And that's gonna be true no matter how much the things they gave you change.  They can wipe away that whole fucking beach and bury a thousand Scrambler cars there, and I'm still gonna know that's the best place to see the fireworks because of my dad, and I'm still not going to be able hate it.  And I'm still not going to be able to hate the him he was when he first showed that to me."

"Yeah," Harry said.  "Yeah."  He looked up, and then twisted to look behind them.  "Hey, it's starting."  

He grabbed Louis by the shoulders to turn him around, and then stood behind him, so Louis was pinned between Harry's body and the railing, and for a moment Louis froze like a Pine Barrens rabbit, not blinking, not breathing, not sure how to deal with the entire length of Harry's body pressed against his back.  But Harry wrapped his arms around Louis and whispered, "Yayyy," right in his ear, "You're going to love this," so excited he was rocking from side to side, and Louis just laughed and closed his eyes and let Harry's momentum carry him too.  "Don't close your eyes!" Harry said.  "Watch!"

So Louis watched as the ocean turned from silvery pink to Dreamsicle orange, so smooth he couldn't tell exactly when it stopped being one color and became the next, streaks of orange swirling through the sky, between the blue and pink clouds.  And then, a pinkish curve through the morning haze, he saw the sun coming up over the edge of the water, and it took him a few seconds to figure it out.

He pushed himself back from the railing when he realized, so hard Harry had to get go of him.  "Holy shit, it's literally coming up."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Harry come around beside him.  "Yes."

"You can literally see it rising!"

"Yes, you goober!"

"Oh my God, the sun is rising!"  

He hopped up and down as he said it, and turned his head to see Harry, who was grinning so wide, looking back and forth between Louis' face and the sun, one hand up to his mouth, fingertips touching his teeth.  "I told you you would love it!" Harry said.

"No, I hate it, I hate you, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me!"

Harry balled up his fists, shook his entire body, and threw himself forward to hug Louis.  "I _told_ you you would love it!"

"Why would you _do_ this to me?" Louis wailed, pretending to sob.  He let the force of Harry's hug nearly knock him over, then let Harry haul him back up.  Every time he blinked the sun was farther up than it had been before, an orange disc hanging over the ocean, and still rising.  Harry was making happy noises, not even words, right up against his ear.  He couldn't tell how much of the warmth was Harry's breath, and how much of it was the sound of his voice.

When the sun was all the way up in the sky, they walked home, split up at the corner of Ocean and Sandpiper Street, Harry saying, "I go down that way," Louis walking backwards up Sandpiper waving till he couldn't see Harry anymore, and then he turned around and felt the morning sun against his back, his shadow long-legged, like Harry, in front of him.

His mom was asleep sitting up on the couch when he got home, head resting on her hand, and Louis felt a sudden twinge of guilt.  "I'm okay, Mom," he whispered, bending down to kiss the top of her head.  "I'm not in trouble.  I just stayed up to watch the sunrise with a friend."

"Good.  Good," she said.  "Did you have a good night, baby?"

"Yeah.  Yeah, it was really, really good."

  
*  


They went to Brinks on their own on a hot Wednesday, sun beating down, and rode the Tilt-A-Whirl and the teacups, both times Louis pushing his tongue against his teeth in concentration and getting them to spin as fast as he could, centrifugal force slamming his body into Harry's, so Harry would laugh and pretend he was being crushed.  They walked down the boardwalk, shirts off, sweat running down their backs and their faces, panting in the heat, although sometimes when they were together Louis couldn't tell if he was breathing heavy from the heat or from how much he wanted Harry.  They got frozen custards and washed the sweat and the stickiness off standing under one of the beach showers.  They ducked into the cool arcade, instant cacophony of game machines beeping and ringing and chiming all around them, and Harry had started asking Louis what was different since Sandy, what had stayed the same, so Louis pointed out that they'd ripped up the carpets, repainted the walls, but it was all just damage from the sand blowing in under the battered shutters, it hadn't done much harm to the games -- these were the same slot machines Louis had played as a kid, the same plexiglas-caged fortune teller he'd thought could tell him his future.  They played skee-ball and Louis was lithe and easy, but Harry was terrible at it, never making it out of the ten-point ring, bouncing his ball off the protective cage every other throw, crying "No!" every single time it rolled back down the lane at him.  They took their tickets and their cups of clinking metal tokens, and got handfuls of gummy animal-shaped erasers at the prize counter for Louis to bring home to his girls, plus one little rubber peanut for Harry.  "I just think it's cute," he said, as Louis shook his head.  "Like you," he said, and this time Louis feeling out of breath was all about how much he wanted Harry, and he squeezed his eyes shut like maybe he could make it go away.

That Saturday he drove down to Asbury on his own, downed two tequila shots and a lemon drop someone sent down the bar to him, and danced with a guy he had talked to a few times before, who always kissed him gently and then harder, like he wanted Louis to pretend he meant it.  They traded handjobs in the bathroom and laughed against each other's chests as they came, about how innocent it all felt, and about how much they liked that.  "Thank you," the guy said to Louis before he left the bathroom stall, and kissed him on the cheek.  "I was afraid you weren't going to be as nice as you looked."  Louis sat in his car in the parking lot for three hours, till he was sure he was sober enough to drive home.  When he stopped at Carousel on his way back, Harry was in the crowd under the bright white halogen lights, sitting against the wall with some of his older cousins, and Louis got his chili dog and diet Pepsi to go, and didn't stop to say hi.

The next Monday it was stormy, thunder rumbling through the whole day, and Harry texted Louis to ask: _want to go out tonight? :)_   Louis thought about running through the storm toward a movie theater with Harry, rain splattering down on the hot asphalt around them, lightning lighting up the soft brown curves of Harry's skin, his t-shirt wet and sticking to his chest.  "I promised my mom I'd watch my sisters tonight," he called Harry back to say.  "But you can come over if you want.  If you want to watch me watch cartoons and put them to bed."  And so Harry showed up on his front steps, and ate Spaghetti-Os for dinner -- with meatballs, but Louis picked them all out of Harry's portion and distributed them evenly among his sisters' bowls -- and watched _Jeopardy_ and _Wheel of Fortune_ and _The Little Mermaid_ twice on the PlayStation Louis had hooked up to use as a DVD player, and when the power went out Harry helped find the flashlights, and sang the girls camp songs, and stood outside the bathroom door with Louis counting to ten at their request, so they could be sure they weren't all alone while they peed in the dark.  Louis woke after midnight to find all the lamps in the living room blazing because the power had come back on, and Harry dead asleep beneath him on the couch, and after he picked the girls up from where they were curled in their sleeping bags on the floor and deposited them gently in their bunk beds, he turned all the lights off one by one and climbed back onto the couch on top of Harry by the silvery light of the moon, and promised himself he would tell him soon, _soon_ , exactly why this wasn't working.  Soon.

  
*  


Harry spotted Louis leaving work, skating down the bike lane on Ocean, weaving though the bennies on their rented cruisers, blinking every time their chrome handlebars glinted in the sun.  "Lou!" he called back from a stoplight, "Meet me at Vinny's!"  The traffic was stop-and-go, morning daytrippers leaving while the afternoon daytrippers arrived, stopping dead in the middle of the lane to wait for a spot while some other family packed their beach chairs and their tote bags into the back of an SUV, taking forever to parallel park, and Louis was already sitting at one of the scratched-up plastic picnic tables, starting on his second slice -- pepperoni with extra cheese for him, mushrooms for Harry, large orange soda for them to share -- by the time Harry pulled up in a shiny red Mustang.  

"You gotta be fuckin' kidding me," Louis said, holding a hand out toward the car.

"It's my sister's, I swear," Harry said.  "She lets me drive it when she's in town."

"Let's swap sisters."

"Nuh-uh," Harry said, taking the soda out of Louis' hand.  "Not until your sisters are old enough to drive."

"They'll be driving whatever's left of my truck."

Harry's cheeks hollowed as he sipped through the straw.  "Okay, then not until your sisters are old enough to irresponsibly splash out a bunch of cash on a fancy car."  He dipped his head for another drink, and Louis closed his eyes, pretending it was just because of the bright sun.  "By the way, I wanted to talk to you about something," he heard Harry say, after he heard Harry swallow, after he heard the little release of breath.  

"What?" Louis asked, opening his eyes.  

"I'm having a party at the house," Harry said, and Louis noticed he said it the way bennies always did -- _the_ house, not _our_ house.  "I really want you to come.  And I really want you to invite some of your friends, because right now it's just people I know from college, and I'd feel really bad if you were wandering around having to talk to strangers all night."

"Yeah, my mom told me never to talk to strangers."

"Exactly."

"When is this party?"

"Saturday night."  It was hot as fuck out today, and Harry leaned across the table to wipe the sweat off Louis' forehead.

"Gross," Louis said, as Harry pulled back and rubbed his hand against his thigh.

"What's gross is you were going to use your t-shirt to do it when you thought I wasn't looking.  Don't lie."

"Sometimes, when you hug me, I use _your_ t-shirt."

"You know what, just don't talk to my friends at all."

"Ha," Louis said.  "My evil plan is working."

"No, seriously though, can you come?  Please come?  Please invite your friends."

"Don't you know men don't like it when you seem desperate, Harold?"

'Fine," Harry said, crossing his arms.  "Don't come.  See if I care."

"Much better.  That's the way to my heart."

Harry grinned and leaned across the table again, this time touching his hand to Louis' chest, and leaving it there.  "Good," he said.  "Your heart is what I want."

Louis concentrated on tearing apart his pizza crust, on how he would scatter it later for the birds, on breathing, on willing his heart to keep beating there beneath Harry's touch, on willing his heart to stop beating, to stop trying to leap out of his chest and land blood-soaked and raw right in Harry's waiting hands.  "By the way," he said, when he thought he could speak again, "there's something I wanted to talk to you about, too."

"Good something or bad something?" Harry asked.

Louis squinted.  "A little bit of both?

"Okay," Harry said.  "In that case, do you mind if we do it a little later?  My sister's gonna want the car back soon, and I don't want to, like, not give you enough time."

"Yeah, no, that's fine."

"I can come over tonight?"

"Actually, you know what," Louis said, tearing up the last little bits of the crust.  "It's not that big a thing, it can wait till after the party."

"You sure?"

"Totally."  Louis brushed his hands together to get the flour off his fingertips, but it didn't work.  He still left white fingerprints on Harry's shirt when they hugged goodbye.  

  
*  


The night of the party, Louis sat on the steps of his mom's house, fanning himself with a _Seventeen_ magazine one of his sisters had left out there that afternoon, watching the humidity rise from the dewy lawn.  The moths were bumping blind into the porch light, and fireflies were flickering out in the street.  He was shoulder-to-shoulder with his friend Liam, telling him all about Harry.

"I don't really see what the problem is," Liam said.  "You're not the only person to ever have a crush."

"I just feel like it's getting inappropriate.  He's so nice, and he'll go to hug me or something, and I just--"

"Try not to get a boner?  Want to rip all his clothes off?  Beg him to fuck you hard?"

"Hey, watch it, my sisters are probably in there eavesdropping."

"Are not!" one of the twins called from the open window.

Louis pointed at the window with the _Seventeen_.  "There you go."

Liam scrunched his face apologetically.  "Sorry."

"I think some little ears are up past their bedtime," Louis called loud enough for the girls to hear.  

His oldest sister's voice was the next through the screen: "I'll keep them occupied, Louis, but tell me about this boy later?"

Louis whipped around to look at her; she had her face pressed sideways against the screen.  "Get your own life!"

"I'm not the one hopelessly in love with a boy I can never have, big brother."

"You know what, Charlie, when is _your_ bedtime?"

"She doesn't have one in the summer," his mother called through the window.  

Louis got up off the steps, backing up onto the lawn so he could look into the window head-on.  "Exactly how many of you are spying on me?"

"All of us!" one of the twins cried, bursting through the front door, throwing herself into Liam's lap.  

Louis covered his face with both hands.  

"Sorry, Liam," his mother said, stepping out the door and motioning for her daughter to come back inside.  "Nice to see you again."

"Oh, yeah, apologize to _Liam_!" Louis cried as the front door slammed behind them.  "Liam, stop laughing."

"Ugh, just finish telling me about this boy!" Charlie shouted through the screen.

"I wasn't telling _you_ ," Louis hissed.

Liam cupped a hand to his ear; from down the block, Louis could hear the chorus of "Living on a Prayer" blasting out of a car window.  "I think Niall's here," Liam said.

"Thank fucking God," Louis muttered.

Niall pulled to a stop at the curb, turning down the radio to call, "Hey, boys!" then ducking so he could see the front window of the house.  "Hey, Charlie!"

"Hey, Niall!" Charlie called back.

"Do _not_ reward her," Louis said, wrenching open the passenger side front door.

"Whoa, dude, I'd like to keep this thing in one piece," Niall said.

"I guess Louis' got shotgun," Liam murmured as he crawled into the backseat.

Niall drove with one hand on the wheel and one hand rubbing Louis' back all the way to Harry's house, while Liam leaned as far forward as his seatbelt would allow, resting his chin on the side of Louis' seat.  "You're going to have fun," they said.  "You're going to have a great time."

Harry answered the door when they rang the bell, holding a crystal bowl full of car keys.  

"Dude?" Louis asked.

"Keys in a bowl, bowl is hidden in a secret location, you don't get them back until you're sober."

"I like this guy," Liam said, as Niall dutifully dropped his keys in the bowl.

"Liam is Port Authority police," Louis said.  "And this is Niall."

Harry touched his index finger to his temple, squinting one eye thoughtfully, then pointed the same finger at the flag emblazoned on Niall's t-shirt.  "Ireland?"

"Fuck yeah," Niall said.

"Then you know how to drink whiskey," said a woman appearing from behind Harry.  She grabbed the front of Niall's shirt.  "Come on!"

"How does he _do_ that?" Liam asked Louis quietly.

Harry stood hugging the crystal bowl of keys to his chest, watching Niall go.  "Irish luck?"

"He was born in fucking Hoboken," Louis said, finally stepping inside.  "Harry, I have never needed a drink more than I need a drink right now."

Harry transferred the crystal bowl to one hand, and hugged Louis tight with his free arm.  "Let me go hide these," he said softly, his lips touching Louis' hair, "and then I'll come back and make you feel better."

Liam, standing off to the side, looked at Louis and raised his eyebrows.

"You, sir," Harry said as he passed Liam on his way upstairs, "have very impressive brows."

  
*  


Exactly three important things happened at Harry's party:

Louis and Harry stood alone on the front lawn, grass wet under their bare feet, gulping big breaths of fresh air.  "How long do you have the house?" Louis asked -- like a benny, _the_ house, not _your_ house, not _this_ house.  It was one of the big houses down at the opposite end of Ocean Avenue: there were the oceanfront condos that opened right onto private beaches, and the big Victorians with front porches and back balconies like this along Ocean and the corners of the side streets, and then the farther you got from the water the smaller the houses got, brightly colored bungalows with striped awnings, modern little glass boxes that let in all the light.  Louis had lived his whole life in this town, and never been inside one of these houses till tonight.  He was surprised by how much he didn't hate it.  He was surprised by how much he wanted to stay.  "Sometime in September," Harry said, "but I don't want to leave."  Louis shook his head: "I don't want you to leave either."  Harry started the most slow-motion hug Louis had ever experienced, gathering Louis carefully and completely into his arms, tucking Louis' limbs against his sides, slipping a hand behind the back of Louis' head, bowing his own head to bury his face in Louis' neck.  "I don't want to leave you," Harry said.  "Is that what you wanted to talk about?  When I was leaving?"  Louis, standing very still in Harry's embrace, shook his head again, his cheek brushing against Harry's cinnamon-scented hair.  "No," he said.  "Not exactly."  They were never going to talk about what he wanted to talk about.  He decided then and there.  They were never going to move from this moment.  He knew he was drunk.

Harry had a friend named Zayn.  Best cheekbones, long eyelashes, ripped jeans.  "Zayn studied art history," Harry said.  "Employable," Louis said.  "Exactly," Zayn said.  They were lying on the living room floor.  They did shots.  Louis blinked, and Zayn disappeared.  Louis closed his eyes, and either a minute or a year later he felt Harry's hand against his cheek.  "Louis," Harry whispered.  "Louis."  Louis loved this house.  Louis didn't love this house, Louis loved Harry.  Louis loved this house because this house held Harry.  "Louis," Harry said again, a little louder.  "I want to tell you a secret."  Louis wanted too.  Louis wanted a lot of things.  Louis wanted to open his eyes to look at Harry, but his eyelids wouldn't cooperate.  "Louis, I need a little guidance," Harry said.  Louis smiled: "I'm probably gonna die if you keep touching me," Louis said, and he felt Harry's hard breath somewhere on his body he couldn't pinpoint, but it was very near his lips.

Creeping up the stairs, running his hand along the wooden banister, polished a long long time ago, but dull and soft beneath his hand now, breathing deep, hearing his own breath in the dark, there was a party downstairs and he should be able to hear it, but all he heard was his own breath, and it all felt so peaceful, like sleeping, like sleeping like awake, he took the stairs step by step, he took the stairs breath by breath, he took the stairs with his hand against the smooth banister, and as he followed its curve around a corner, leading him like a friend, he patted it, nice banister, and there were Harry and Zayn in the doorway of a bedroom, Harry running his hands up under Zayn's shirt, Harry sucking softly on Zayn's bottom lip.  Louis let out a squeak like a little mouse and clapped his hand over his mouth.  He saw Harry see him, the shadows of his eyelashes in the dark, but he was halfway down the stairs before Harry could even move, he leapt down the last steps and skidded across the floor of the foyer, his hand still over his mouth.

  
*  


Louis wasn't sure how long it took him to find Liam.  There was a party downstairs.  There was music.  He took a detour to the kitchen.  He drank a full glass of water.  He drank another full glass of water.  He was only wearing one shoe.  He went back to the living room where they had all been on the floor and looked for his shoe, dropping down on all fours to look under the coffee table where the shotglasses were, saying "excuse me" as he reached underneath a guy and a girl making out to feel between the couch cushions.  He checked the fireplace.  It was in the fireplace.  He sat down in the doorway to pull his shoe back on.  He stayed sitting down for probably a while.  He stood up and found the bathroom and remembered to put the seat up and looked down at the pretty cobalt blue floor and tried not to pee all over it.  He probably forgot to put the seat back down.  Harry would remember to put the seat back down.  Harry would probably be fucking Zayn right this minute.  Where was Liam.

He found Liam in the dining room, watching Niall talk to at least eleven girls.  He grabbed Liam by the shoulders.  "He's not straight," he said.

"What?" Liam said.

"He's not straight!"

Niall turned to look at him.  "Whoa, friend, you are _wasted_."

"Why don't we go outside, Lou?" Liam asked, putting an arm around Louis' shoulders.  He held out the beer he had only half finished.  "I'm gonna take him outside.  Anybody want this?"

"You don't just offer a girl a drink, Liam," Louis said.  "She's gonna think there's roofies in it!"

Niall picked the beer gently out of Liam's hands and took a swig.  "See, it's safe," he said.  "Anybody?

"Come on, Louis," Liam said.  "Let's go get some fresh air.  Tell me what you want to tell me."

They followed a brick path.  They were around the side of the house, in the green grass.  There was a trellis and a rosebush running up the side of the chimney.  Louis slipped off his shoes, digging his toes down into the grass, and took a deep breath.

"He's not straight," he said.  "Harry.  I went upstairs and he was making out with Zayn."

"Zayn," Liam said.  "The one with the eyelashes?"

"Yes, Liam, the one with the eyelashes, the beautiful fucking marble statue of a man that I could never compete with, thanks for pointing that out, thanks, good supportive, very friend."

"You have eyelashes too!" Liam said.  "How are you just as mouthy drunk as you are sober?"

"Magic."

"Well, there you go, Zayn probably isn't as magic as you."

"You are _not_ as good at friendship drunk as you are sober."

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"I don't know," Louis said.  "How did this happen?  How did I think he was straight?"

"Well, maybe he _is_ straight," Liam shrugged.  "Maybe he's just experimenting.  Maybe you made him curious!  There was that thing you told me about, with the...face-crotch."

"Why isn't he experimenting with _me_ , if I made him curious?  That hardly seems fair!"

"Well, you did tell him it was uncomfortable.  The...crotch-face."

"Please stop saying it like that."  Louis sat down crosslegged on the grass.  "I did tell him it was uncomfortable.  And he said -- he said _all his friends had made out with him_.  Maybe that's what this is."

"Maybe."  Liam crouched down beside him.  "You know, you could just ask."

"I don't know where he is.  I don't remember what happened.  We were in the living room?  We were doing shots.  And then Zayn was gone, and then Harry -- he said he needed guidance.  Oh God, I told him to stop touching me or I would die."

"That's a little rejectory.  Is rejectory a word?  Rejection-y."

"Re...jective?  I don't know, why are we talking about this."  Louis' phone buzzed, and he dug into his pocket.  It was a text from Harry: _were r u?_   "Oh God, he's texting me.  He wants to know where I am."

"Do you want him to know where you are?"

"No."

"Then give me the phone," Liam said.  Louis handed it over, and Liam tucked it into his own pocket.  

"I was lying there thinking about how much I loved him," Louis said.  He dimly remembered lying on the living room floor, and also being in the kitchen before that, Harry mixing up a makeshift Tom Collins -- what the fuck was a Tom Collins, why did Harry know these things -- with Minute Maid lemonade, and seltzer, and Hendrick's out of the liquor cabinet.  Harry with his hand on Louis' back, between his shoulderblades, when Louis started to feel unsteady.  Harry letting Louis bury his face against his chest in one of those thin t-shirts and stand there, just breathing.  "He said he wanted to tell me a secret.  I could feel him breathing on me."  Louis looked down.  He was wearing one of those thin t-shirts right now, he had spilled his drink on himself, and Harry took him up to the bedroom and handed him a Pink Floyd t-shirt and turned around to give him privacy while he changed.  "Why wouldn't he tell me?  He could have told me like a million times."

"I don't know," Liam said.

Louis stood up.  "Whatever.  This night is shitty."

"Do you want to go home?"

"We're drunk.  Harry has our fucking keys."

"We can walk.  We can call a taxi."

Louis sighed.  "No.  Let's just go back in there."

"Atta boy.  Face your fears."

"Shut up, Liam."

"Love you too, Louis."

They went back into the house, through the back door, Louis holding Liam's hand, letting Liam lead him through the game room, the crowded kitchen, the dining room.  "Where are we going?" Louis asked.

"Looking for Niall."

They found Harry instead, sitting at the bottom of the stairs, watching the front door so intently he didn't notice till they had already passed in front of him.

"Louis!" Harry said, standing up.

Louis froze.  Liam squeezed his hand, and gave him a look: _You don't have to._

"Can we talk?" Harry asked.

"What the fuuuuuuck," Louis sang softly to Liam.

"Please," Harry said.  "I know this is probably weird for you, but you seem like you're mad at me, and I don't think I did anything for you to be mad at me about."

Liam let go of Louis' hand, and stepped forward.  "Hey.  Dude."

"No, he's right," Louis said.  "He didn't actually do anything."

"So we can talk?" Harry asked,

"Yes."

They were outside on the front lawn again, under the black sky, the sound of the waves in the distance.  Everything seemed to be happening faster than Louis could keep up with.

"I'm not wearing shoes," Louis said.  "Why do I keep losing my shoes?"

Harry slipped off his Converse and kicked them softly across the grass at Louis.  "Here."

"Are you straight?" Louis asked.

"No."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did tell you!  Sort of."

"When?  When did you tell me?"

Harry crossed his arms.  "I told you I flirted with everybody.  I told you you were right, I just like people."

"Oh, Harry, that's not an orientation."

"What the fuck?  Yes it is!  Why do you people always want to tell me what I am?"

Louis raised his eyebrows.  "You people?"

"Gay guys.  Every fucking time, I get this.  You know what?  I respect your orientation.  I don't question it.  I don't sit around thinking, actually, I know better than him how he feels and the best words to describe it."

"Okay, okay, you're right, I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

"What's the deal with you and Zayn?" Louis asked.

"Not that it's any of your business--"

"It became my business when you guys were doing it out in the middle of a hallway."

"--but we hook up sometimes.  We have basically as long as we've known each other.  It isn't, like, serious."

 Louis looked away, counting the reflected streetlights in the windshields of the cars parked down the block.

"What else do you want to ask me?" Harry said.

"I don't want to ask you anything else."

"Yes, you do.  You have the worst poker face in the world.  And like, I literally gave away a surprise party once just by _being_."

"Why would you not hook up with me?" Louis asked.  "When we were in the living room -- you left, and you went upstairs with Zayn."

"First of all, you told me to stop touching you."

"I didn't mean like that.  I meant like, the way we were.  I meant if you were straight, if you were gonna keep touching me and not do anything about it."

"Second of all, it's a good thing I didn't know that's what you meant, because you were way too drunk to do anything right then.  And third of all, it _is_ serious with you."

"What does that mean?"

"You know what that means," Harry said.

"No, no, no," Louis said.  "I don't.  Vague shit where you don't say what you mean but you expect me to understand what you mean is exactly how we got into this mess.  So tell me what that means."

Harry looked down.

"You know," Louis said, "It wasn't just, if you were gonna keep touching me and not do anything about it, like, sexually.  It was  -- like, I just want to be close to you?"

Harry was breathing harder; Louis could see his chest rising and falling under his shirt.  He knew how that felt.  

"I don't want to finish this conversation drunk," Harry said.

"Me neither," Louis said.  "I don't want to tell you this drunk, and I don't want to have sex with you drunk, and I don't want to make out with you for the first time drunk, but I _do_ want to, like, crawl inside your body and live there forever?  Is there a happy medium between that?"

"Yes," Harry said.

Liam opened the door before they even started up the steps.

"Were you watching through the peephole?" Louis asked.

"Yes," Liam said.

"I take it back," Louis said, wrapping his arms around Liam's waist and pressing his cheek against Liam's shoulder.  "You're a very good friend when you're drunk."

"I'll be back," Harry said, and appeared a minute later beside Liam with the crystal bowl of keys.  "Liam, this is your responsibility.  No one leaves without a field sobriety test."

"Of course," Liam said, taking the bowl.  

Up in Harry's room, the door closed behind them, Louis stripped down to his boxers and climbed into the bed, and when Harry crawled in under the blankets with him, he curled up with his legs alongside Harry's legs, and his head tucked against Harry's chest.  "No," Harry whined.  "I want to be the little one."

"Well, you blew it by being a fucking colt," Louis said.

"Please?"

"Fine."  He rearranged himself so Harry could curl up against him, one long leg slung over Louis' thighs, his head resting on Louis' chest.  Louis pushed his fingers through Harry's hair, twirling the longest sections, stroking it back from Harry's forehead.  He drifted off like that, barely woke up when Harry slipped out of bed whispering that he had to make sure everyone crashing had blankets before he fell asleep, and again when Harry came back, hugging an arm around Louis' waist, ducking his head in under Louis' hand.  "You're the worst," Louis whispered, and felt Harry smile against his side.

  
*  


Louis woke in the bluest part of the morning, the contours of the bedroom barely visible in the inky light.  _Harry's_ bedroom, he thought as he sat up, mouth cottony dry, head and heart both pounding, everything seeming to tilt on an axis he couldn't identify.  He had been lying with his face against Harry's bicep, lips stuck slightly to Harry's skin.  He rubbed his hair out of his face and patted down the rumpled comforter, the multicolored quit that crumpled over it, there were a multitude of blankets on this bed, and his feet still stuck out from one of the edges, his toes cold in the central air.  Harry rolled over next to him: "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Louis whispered.  "Just can't sleep sometimes when I drink."

"It's because alcohol is a depressant.  Your nervous system counteracts by releasing all these hormones to keep you up, and they last longer in your bloodstream than the alcohol does."

"Why do you know that?"

"I don't know," Harry said, his voice croaky, covering his face with one hand.  "I'm so thirsty."

"It's because alcohol makes you fucking thirsty."

"Stop.  You can't be clever at--" He groped around for the bedside clock, picking it up and then fumbling to put it back down. "--four-fifty in the morning."  

"I'm clever all the time," Louis said.  "Twenty-four seven."  He wanted to lean over Harry as he said it, see Harry's solid body caged between his arms, feel his skin slide against Harry's as he lowered himself down, fingers slipping in behind Harry's head, gripping his soft hair as he went in for the kiss, but he didn't.  Instead he reached one hand out, and with his fingertips softly stroked Harry's throat.

Harry scrunched his shoulders up in reflex-response, catching Louis' fingers between his chin and his chest.  "That tickles."

"Sorry," Louis said, working his fingers free as Harry relaxed.  

They stayed still in the blue half-dark for a while, soft breathing with each other, Harry lying back with his eyes closed, Louis studying the contour of Harry's skin and shadows, thinking about running his fingertips over every inch of him.  

"You want breakfast?" Harry asked.

"Huh?"

"Breakfast.  As long as we're up."

"Sure," Louis said.  "If you want."

They padded down the stairs barefoot in the dark, someone snoring on the couch in the living room, the dining room table pushed aside to make way for an air mattress, piled with sleeping bodies, Niall in the middle; up on the landing, waiting dazed for Harry to appear shirtless next to him after pulling on his jeans, Louis had seen Liam curled on the floor of one of the bedrooms, Zayn starfished across a mattress in another, and those were honestly all the people he could remember from last night besides Harry.  Harry took Louis' hand when they reached the bottom of the stairs, and led him into the kitchen.

As quietly as they could, they cleared the plastic Solo cups and empty beer bottles off the center island without turning on the lights; Harry handed Louis a spray bottle of organic cleaner and a paper towel neatly folded in quarters to wipe down the sticky granite countertop, and when he was done Louis sat up on one of the stools to wait for Harry to finish cooking, scrambled eggs and toast, plus a turkey sausage for Louis.  They sat side-by-side and ate their eggs off of mismatched plates, handing the bottle of orange juice Harry had found half-full in the fridge back and forth.  Every time they traded, their fingers touched, and when they were done, Louis held Harry's hand in his lap, twisting one of his silver hippie rings, Grateful Dead bears marching around the band.

"This is weird," Louis said.

"What?"

"I mean, after last night, like -- could I just kiss you now, if I wanted to?"

"You could have kissed me before."

"You know what I mean.  It's all out in the open now."

Harry nodded.  "I know.  And yes."

Louis leaned across the space between their chairs, bracing himself with one hand against the back of Harry's seat, and touched his lips softly to Harry's.  He felt Harry's eyelashes brush against his own as Harry closed his eyes, and then he pulled back.

Harry smiled, tilting his head.  "That was so chaste."

"Shut up, I'm a gentleman."

"I know you are."

Louis trailed the back of his hand up Harry's thigh, knuckles pressing slightly into the soft flesh beneath his jeans pocket.  "It's like, now that I can, I don't even know what to do."  He turned his hand over, spread it flat, thumb still hooked into the crook of Harry's hip, fingers stiff and digging into his inner thigh.

"That's a good start," Harry said.

"It's like everything is enough."

"Louis."

"What?" 

Harry took Louis' face in both hands, bringing it close to his own.  "You are literally the best person I've ever met."

"That's not true, you've met Niall."

"Besides Niall.  Niall is a god."

Louis nudged his face forward in Harry's hands, and nudged again, Harry pretending to hold him back before he'd let him have a kiss, and then Louis changed his mind at the last minute, went not for his mouth but his cheek: cheekbone, dimple, jaw, kissing down the side of his face, under his chin, throat, back up and then back down again, just barely touching his lips to Harry's body the first time, then baring his teeth with a smile, pushing out his tongue to lick and letting the wet of his bottom lip drag against Harry's skin the second.

"Oh, chaste and slutty all at the same time," Harry whispered, letting his head fall back.  "I like it."

Louis pulled back again, even though he could feel the muscles of his stomach tensing, even though he could feel himself starting to get hard.  Harry curled his fingers against Louis' back, and Louis tried to breathe through the shiver that rippled down his spine.

"Tease," Harry said, sliding his hand down to grip Louis' butt, trying to pull him back in.

"I'm beginning to think you only want me for my body," Louis said.

"No."  Harry shook his head, slid his other hand against the side of Louis' face.  "I want you _and_ your body."

"Okay, well, I really am chaste and slutty, so like, gimme some time."

"I will give you all the time you need.  I will never fuck you at all, if that's what you want."

"Never has one sentence sounded so romantic and yet so depressing," Louis murmured, leaning his head into Harry's hand.

"That's my speciality.  When we finally have sex, I'll tell you about the time I accidentally killed my sister's hamster."

"I mean, my last random hookup was a handy, so that's what you're dealing with here."

"I'm gonna call you Katy Perry, 'cause you're my teenage dream."

"Romantic and depressing," Louis said as Harry wrapped his arms around Louis' waist, nuzzled his face into the side of Louis' neck.

"Okay, chaste and slutty," Harry said, "what do you say we go watch the sunrise?"

Louis shrugged.  "Now that I know the sun actually rises, what else is there really to see?"

"Back to bed, then?"  Harry stood, tugging Louis by the hand, and Louis followed, back through the dining room, past the open front door where Niall was sitting on the porch outside, softly strumming an acoustic guitar, a woman in a long sundress looking content lying on the step next to him, using his hoodie as a blanket.  Harry and Louis stopped, fingers laced together.

"Morning, Niall," Harry said.

"Where did you even get a guitar?" Louis asked.

"Morning, lovebirds," Niall said, and shrugged an answer to Louis.  "Around.  Katie here couldn't sleep."

"He really is fucking magic," Louis whispered, looking back as Harry pulled him up the stairs.

In the bedroom, Louis stripped off the t-shirt and running shorts he'd borrowed, while Harry sat on the edge of the bed, peeling off his jeans, and "Hey," Louis said, pulling the blankets up around himself, "what we were talking about last night -- why didn't you tell me?

"I did tell you," Harry said.

"I know, you told me you liked people, but why didn't you tell me you liked _me_?"

"Why didn't you tell me _you_ liked me?"

"I thought you were straight.  I thought it would make things weird between us.  You knew I was gay."

Harry joined him under the blankets, Louis felt the warmth radiating off Harry's body first, and then Harry's skin against his skin.  "And you totally freaked out the first time I was even like, _jokingly_ sexual with you.  I thought you thought I was trying to get in your pants because you were the first gay guy I found here.  I couldn't figure it out.  I kept thinking like, how many more times can I show up to this guy's work and ask him to lunch and tell him I want to be around him and tell him he's an angel before he gets that I like _him_?  I was really afraid of coming on too strong -- or like, at all."

Louis laughed.  "Sorry."  He rolled onto his side so he could hide his face against Harry's shoulder, and then Harry's fingers were at the nape of his neck, stroking against his hair.  "That's what I was going to talk to you about, you know.  You kept showing up and hugging me and flirting and you were gorgeous and you were all nice, and every time I was like, _ugh, never stop, have sex with me till forever_ and I felt like I was using you."

"'Have sex with me till _forever_ ,' Louis?"

"Shut up.  I don't know.  I'm not _all_ chaste."

"Have you jacked off thinking about me?"

"Shut up."

"You have, haven't you?  You little minx."

Louis slid his hand between them up Harry's chest, found one of his nipples, and pinched.  "I will literally hurt you."

"No!" Harry pulled back, tucking his arms in over his chest.  "No, all this time I thought you were an angel!  My hopes and dreams are shattered!"

" _Don't_ , don't move away," Louis whined, his hands around Harry's waist, he wanted him to stay close.

"Don't pinch me in the nipple!"

"I promise, I promise," Louis said, and rubbed the pad of his thumb against it instead, dipped his head to kiss it, curled his fingers to scratch across it and hear Harry gasp into his hair, hips pressing desperate and gentle against Louis' own, and feel Harry hold him tighter, whispering to be careful, and he liked Louis so much, and be careful, until Louis fell asleep, the room growing brighter and brighter, the sun was finally up.

  
*  


Their first official date was at The Marlin, eight o'clock on a Saturday night, two clam chowders and a basket of fries split between them, special request for a cup of crayons, and Louis took Harry's placemat with them again when they left, afterward they stood in the parking lot holding hands overlooking the ocean, the sound of the waves lapping against the rocks, the bright white shine of the lights across the inlet on the glassy black surface of the water, "What a _terrible_ idea for a date dinner," Louis said when they kissed in the car, "You taste like clams and vinegar," Harry giggling with his head against the wheel of his cousin's car, "We can fix this!" Harry said, backing the car out of the spot, and they shared a double scoop of mint chocolate chip sitting on a curb outside a crowded gelato place in Belmar, and as soon as they were done Harry tossed the cup over his shoulder and kissed Louis so hard he had to brace both his hands against the sidewalk behind him, and then scrambled away to pick up the cup so he could throw it out properly, calling "Sorry!" to everyone else on the sidewalk, leaving Louis smiling to himself staring up at the Christmas lights strung through the tree above him.

Their second official date was in the backyard at Harry's house, after everyone else had gone to sleep.  Louis was standing in the dairy aisle at Beach Street Gourmet, trying to remember which brie Harry had told him to pick, when his phone buzzed with a text from Harry: _abort abort!_   He turned around, confused, and there was Harry waving at him from across the store; they met in the middle aisle, gluten-free pastas and all-natural tricolor couscous, "My family decided to come back to the house a day early," Harry said, "My _entire_ family," and they were about to call the whole thing off, but when they looked down at the basket Harry had been lugging, they decided it against it.  They parked on a side street and ate their chocolate-covered strawberries and a baguette with brie and cannoli shells they cracked and dipped right in the container of chocolate-chip studded cream in his sister's Mustang with the top down, counting down the hours till they thought everyone would be in bed. Around three in the morning Louis stood on the sidewalk in front of the house, holding a bag of graham crackers and chocolate bars, staring down at his phone until it lit up blue with a text from Harry: _all clear, come on back._   Louis tiptoed across the lawn, dew soaking through his Vans, past the rose trellis and the spot where he'd left his shoes that first night, to find Harry standing over the firepit with a bag of charcoal and a box of matches, and in the end they just snuck into the kitchen to make their s'mores in the microwave.  They forgot the napkins, and Louis licked the melted marshmallow off Harry's hand instead, and when Harry drove him home he fell asleep in the car with Harry's hand on his knee, and didn't wake up till it was daylight, in the Mustang in his own driveway, with Harry's head on his shoulder and his mom rapping on the window to ask if they could move, so she could get her car out to go to work.  "Why were we sleeping in the driveway?" Louis asked after he shook Harry awake, and Harry said, "I didn't want to disturb you."  

Their third official date was at the Anchor Inn in Ocean Grove, Harry in a black suit jacket over his blackest jeans and his softest black t-shirt, tattoos on his chest showing through when the candlelight hit him just right, black boots freshly polished, Louis wanted to kiss him so hard, wanted to tell everyone that this boy was _his_ , wanted to make them understand what they were seeing when they looked at him: smart and sweet and eager, placemat artist, fruit aficionado, the dirtiest mind in the world, and maybe the nicest person Louis had ever known.  Getting ready in the bathroom at Harry's, while Louis stood in front of the mirror buttoning his shirt up to the top button, and combing back his hair, Harry was stretched out across the edge of the bed, already ready, swinging his legs, scrolling through his Twitter feed, "Sorry, I know I take forever," Louis said when he finally emerged, and Harry sat up saying it was okay, and looked at Louis, and tilted his head to one side.  "Come here," he said.  "What?" Louis asked, running his hands down his shirt.  "Does it look okay?"  "Just come here," Harry said, "I want to fix one thing," and wrapped Louis up in a hug, arms around Louis' shoulders, legs around Louis' waist, tipping them both back onto the bed.  "What was that for?" Louis asked, his face against Harry's neck.  "You look really good, but you didn't have enough me on you," Harry said, and kissed Louis on the forehead.  At the Anchor, they shared a cheesecake and a chocolate mousse for dessert, and as he licked the last of the strawberry sauce off his fork, Louis asked, "Do you have any plans for tomorrow morning?"  Harry, eyes following Louis' tongue along the silvery tines, said, "No, why?" and Louis laid a keycard down on the center of the table: "I reserved us a room for tonight.  I thought maybe we could try more slutty and less chaste?"  Harry leaned forward, brushed his lips against Louis' before turning away to kiss Louis' cheek, and said, "I love the way you do everything."

  
*  


They sat on the couch at Louis' mom's.  Harry was watching _Law & Order_ reruns -- "That guy definitely did it," pointing the remote at the screen -- and Louis had his head tipped back so his face was right in the way of the window air-conditioner, eyes closed, hair ruffling cool over his forehead.  They had the house to themselves for once, and Harry bent his head to trail kisses down Louis' throat, flicking his tongue against the hollow of his collarbone, pulling the collar of his Joy Division t-shirt down to start on his chest.

"I can't believe you listen to fucking Joy Division," Harry murmured, breath hot against Louis' skin.

"Fuck you," Louis said, head still back, eyes still closed.  Harry was working his way across the _It Is What It Is_ tattoo.  "Mouth.  Kiss my mouth."  And there Harry was, open-mouthed slick just enough to tease, and then again, a few seconds longer and slower till Louis' hips pressed up, and he caught Louis' bottom lip between his teeth as he pulled away.  "Jesus, is that what they teach you at Princeton?" Louis whispered.

"Shh."

"Is it like a special elective?" he asked against Harry's mouth, turning his head to follow it as Harry kissed wet and sucking down his neck, Harry's stupidly giant hand sliding up his thigh to palm his cock through his jeans.  

"You never stop talking, do you?" Harry asked.

"You wouldn't like it if I did," Louis said, and he felt Harry nodding against his neck, mouth too busy to answer, working on sucking a bruise into the crook of Louis' shoulder.  "You love it when I won't shut up."

"Yes," Harry breathed, and Louis made an embarrassingly tender noise when he felt him exhale over his wet skin.  "Favorite thing about you."  He settled in Louis' lap, forearms crossed behind Louis' neck, bringing his open mouth to Louis' and letting Louis suck his bottom lip, breathing out a little whine and rocking himself over Louis' dick.

Louis opened his eyes to glance down Harry's body, brushing the back of his hand up the inside of Harry's thigh, gripping the top of Harry's leg and running his thumb up the inseam of Harry's jeans, sliding his palm up to grip Harry's hip, fingertips settling in the dimple at the side of Harry's ass, running his thumb up again, this time along the thick line of Harry's cock through the denim.  Harry was breathing hard, mouth open against Louis' temple, and Louis ducked his head to nuzzle his face into Harry's shoulder, closing his eyes again, trying to keep his thumb running softly up and down the length of Harry's cock as Harry rocked his hips once more.  "Is it part of freshman orientation?" he asked, smiling and nipping his teeth at Harry's neck. "Or is it like your last class senior year?  Advanced Get Your Boyfriend Hard?"

Harry stilled against him, and Louis opened his eyes.  Harry's dumb necklaces were still swinging in front of him, and he stopped them with one hand, cupping the crucifix and the Star of David with his palm against Harry's chest.  "Oh," Harry said, and when he rolled off of Louis, flopping flat on his back on the couch, he brought Louis with him, pulling Louis down so he fell between his legs, squeezing his thighs together so Louis would stay.  He was grinning, tongue between his teeth.  "You think I'm your _boyfriend_!"

"Actually, I said Advanced Get _Your_ Boyfriend Hard," Louis muttered.  "So that would make me the boyfriend."

"Nuh-uh, no, boyfriends is a reciprocal thing," Harry said.  "If you're my boyfriend, then I'm your boyfriend back."

"Did they teach you _that_ at Princeton?"

"Yup."  

Louis wriggled free of Harry's legs, kneeling up and resting his hands on Harry's knees.  "So."

Harry stared at him, serene, slow-blinking.  "So."

"Is that...okay?"

"Of course it's okay, dipshit."  Harry closed his legs and sighed.  "Why don't you have a bedroom?  We should be having celebratory you-just-called-me-your-boyfriend sex."

"Well," Louis said, "first there was a hurricane."

"I know, I know."

"And then there was a housing shortage."

"I know!"

"And several thousand dollars in mold remediation later, my mom's formerly nice finished basement is now a giant concrete box where the washer and dryer and probably a family of mice live."

"I would fuck you in a concrete box with a family of mice in a _minute_ ," Harry said.  "Because by the way, if they're giving out degrees for getting your boyfriend hard, you have a fucking Ph. D."

Louis smiled, leaning forward, propping his chin on Harry's knees.  " _You_ have a bedroom."

"Where we can fuck ever so quietly, because there are seven hundred people in my family and they're not even _thinking_ about leaving the house till next Wednesday."

"I could be quiet," Louis promised.

"I've had sex with you," Harry said.  "No you can't."

"Dirty, dirty lies," Louis said.

"Yeah, it's dirty all right."

"Hey," Louis said, pouting out his bottom lip.  "You said you liked that I never shut up."

"I _do_.  It's just that my family might not."

"Speaking of," Louis said, turning his head toward the sound of the front door unlatching.

"Little eyes are home!" his mother called as the front door swung open.  "Is everybody decent?"

Louis scrunched his face.  "Ew, Mother!"  He sat back on the couch, pulling one of the throw pillows over his lap.

She lifted an eyebrow at the pillow as she shepherded the twins through the room.  "Mm, yeah, so unreasonable of me to think anything adults-only might be going on in here."

"He was an innocent," Harry said, sitting up crosslegged, hands folded politely over his crotch.  "I corrupted him."

"Oh, honey, if that's what you think, he _really_ has you fooled," she said.  "By the way, Lou, there's some laundry in the girls' room that needs folding.  When you can stand."

" _Mom_."

"I can," Harry said.

She smirked, asking "In those jeans?" and he looked down.

"The tightness keeps everything all smushed in," he said, gesturing with a hand held flat, and she tipped her head back to laugh.

Later, in the kitchen, while Louis drained the pasta, smiling at nothing as the steam condensed against his skin, and Harry stood leaning on one of the chairs, letting the girls sternly instruct him in the fine art of setting a table wrong, Louis noticed his mom had joined him at the sink, tucking her chin down to touch it to his shoulder.  "He's a good one," she said.  "Keep him."

"Mom.  I've known him like two months."

"And he folds laundry with you, and you're happy.  I like it when you're happy.  _Keep him_."

  
*  


Sometimes, after work, he drove by the house, and if the lights were on, and if he could tell from the cars in the driveway that just Harry and the cousins were home, he'd slow to a stop at the curb and honk, put it into park and wait for Harry to come traipsing across the lawn, out the front door or from around the back of the house, in a t-shirt and ripped jeans or shirtless in running shorts, and always barefoot, always smiling.  He'd kiss Louis through the open window of the truck, and Louis would step on the gas, and feel his heart rev in time with the engine.  

"I brought you a treat," Louis said, tilting his head toward the paper bag on the passenger seat.  "What is it?" Harry asked, still leaning in the window, breath warmer than the warm evening air against Louis' neck.  "Cannolis from Franco's," Louis said.  "Way superior to the ones from Beach Street."  Harry nodded, "Yeah, those were unspectacular," and jumped, pushing half his body through the window, arm outstretched and fingers grasping at the bag, "Gimme!"  Louis tickled under his arms to get him to pull back, shoved him out the window as he shouted " _Nooo_!" in defeat, told him to wait till they were sitting down somewhere, like human beings.  "Fine," Harry huffed, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes like he could actually be dissatisfied with anything Louis did, and Louis asked, "Here or somewhere else?"  "Somewhere else," Harry answered, and they drove down to the boardwalk and ate side-by-side on one of the benches, licking the cream off their fingers as they watched the ocean turn purple and blue, the sun setting behind them.

Midweeks, when the aunts and uncles were in the city at work, Louis had the run of the house.  He woke up in it some mornings, and came home to it some nights, wandered through the downstairs and sat crosslegged on the front porch when he couldn't sleep, stood in the hazy backyard eating the chocolate granola Harry kept in the cereal cabinet, waiting for Harry to get back from his run.  Harry and the college-age cousins were there for the season, Harry explained once, "and then the grown-ups and the little kids come down for like, long weekends."  Louis had rolled over, cocooning himself and Harry together in the blankets, and said "I hate to break it to you, Harry, but you _are_ a grown-up."  Harry dimpled one cheek: "Not as far as my family is concerned."  Some days they were all alone --  "Where do they _go_?" Louis asked one morning, when the cousins were gone and the house was silent.  Harry said, "They have other stuff they want to do, they go up to the city to visit their friends," and Louis asked, "So how come you're here all the time?" and Harry said, "I'm where I want to be" -- and those days they both stayed home, Louis called out of work and Harry skipped his run, they ate Froot Loops together sitting in bed with the blankets around them, and stood in front of the the TV downstairs watching the Weather Channel, Louis leaning on Harry's back while Harry waited for the Local on the 8's.  Upstairs, undressing, grabbing their bathing suits off the towel rack in the bathroom, they stopped to kiss till their mouths were red, and Louis trailed his swollen lips down Harry's chest, down his stomach, down to his cock, sucking softly till Harry begged him for more.  They went to the beach and ate Harry's fancy cheese sandwiches, walked up to Kohr Bros. for a frozen custard, wandered over to the A &P to buy veggie burgers and half a watermelon for dinner, and when they got home Harry shoved the groceries in the fridge and peeled Louis' trunks away from his damp skin, and upstairs Louis let Harry slip three fingers into him, gasping, so lost in it he couldn't tell whose breath he was hearing.  In the laundry room there was a load of bathing suits and old beach towels -- half of them from Harry's family, half of them from Louis' mom's house, little parts of Louis' life were slowly accumulating here -- that they were supposed to wash, and burnt-out bulbs in some of the bedrooms that needed to be changed.  When they were done, Harry asked, always _asked_ , for Louis to fuck him, and as Louis pushed up into him there was always a moment where Harry looked like maybe this hurt, and when Louis asked if he was okay Harry always said "It's good, it's good, I just love you, it's good."  They fell asleep together and woke up at ten and remembered dinner, and Louis stood next to Harry as he laid slices of cheddar over the burgers on the grill, looking at the way the fire flickered over Harry's face.  When they watched Letterman, Louis remembered the laundry, and said he was going to go throw everything in the dryer, he would only be a minute, and he switched on the light in the laundry room and looked at their towels swirled together in the washer and smiled to himself.   In the living room, Harry welcomed him back with a cup of tea and an open mouth, kissing every part of him that needed to be kissed, whispering each time how beautiful he was.  They fell asleep curled against each other on the couch, and woke up when they heard keys in the lock, the TV playing the morning news, and they sat up and rubbed at the cricks in their necks, and went upstairs to say goodbye.

  
*  


"You know he's leaving, right?" Niall asked.  "He's only here for the summer?"

They were sitting in a district-issue blue truck in the empty elementary school parking lot, Bon Jovi on a boom box on the dashboard, drinking Cokes out of a cooler full of ice.  The sun was beating down hard through the windshield, hot even with the A/C on full blast, and Louis lifted his can to his forehead, the cold condensation trickling down his face and mixing with his sweat.  

"I know," he said.  "But he's not going till September.  And he's only going to Connecticut."

"I believe you tried the long-distance benny thing before," Niall said.  "I believe you ended up crying for three days on my couch."  

"Okay," Louis said.

"I believe I had to stand you in my shower and wash your hair."

"That _never_ happened!  Ugh, what kind of weird fantasies have you been having about me?"

"I have _definitely_ shampooed you, bro."

Louis looked out the window and took a swig of his Coke.  "That guy was a prick, though.  He wasn't as, you know, good as Harry."

Niall snorted.  "Maybe Harry isn't as good as Harry."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Just that nobody's perfect," Niall said.  "Look, I don't see you fall for guys a lot, but when you do you fall hard.  I don't want you to put him up on a pedestal and think there aren't going to be any problems, and then get disappointed."

"What problems?  What problems do you think we're gonna have?"

"You haven't met his family yet."

"So?"

"That's something," Niall said.

Louis put his can down between his feet and turned to Niall.  "Why do you always do this?  Why do you always have to plant this seed in my head of what could go wrong?"

"I'm sorry, dude.  I'm just protective."

"Well, try being protective the opposite way.  Protect the stuff that makes me happy.  _Jesus_."

"I'm sorry!  I just worry about you."

"We can't all walk through life in a magical haze of happiness like you do, sorry," Louis said.  "For me this actually matters.  This isn't just, like, some fun I had and now I'm gonna go find the next one."

Niall reached across the dashboard and turned off the boom box.  "Hey, people matter to me.  That's why I worry about this stuff, because people matter to me.  And that's why I don't put them up on pedestals."

"All right, fine, whatever," Louis said.  "I know he's leaving."

Niall stared out the windshield, at a day's worth of hedge clippings scattered across the school's sidewalk.  "You're on broom duty, by the way."

"How come you never sweep?"

"Because when it's time for weed-killing, I spray everything while you sit on your ass and cough delicately."

Louis furrowed his brow.  "It makes me lungs feel weird!"

"Your lungs are pussies," Niall said.

"That...is...a biologically really weird concept."

Niall laughed, hunching over the steering wheel.  "Oh God, can you imagine?"

"Not really," Louis said.  "I like, can't imagine a pussy."

Niall looked over at him, laughing again.  "Oh man, you're really missing out in life."

"Well, you've never sucked a cock, so."

"You don't know that."

" _Seriously_?"

"You might as well try everything once," Niall said.  

"You ever been fucked?"

"Not by a guy, but by a girl with a strap-on, yes."

" _Dude_."

Niall shrugged.  "Wasn't really into it."

"Well, it's weird the first couple times," Louis said.

"You're telling me," Niall said.

Louis picked up his soda, slumped down in his seat, jammed his feet against the dashboard.  "He keeps saying he doesn't want to leave.  He doesn't want to be anywhere else."

"Just because he doesn't want to leave doesn't mean he won't."

"I _know_."

"Do you?"  Niall leaned over, laying himself across the center console so he was closer to Louis, so Louis had to look down at his face.  "Louis, there are always gonna be problems.  I'm not saying this to try and destroy something that makes you happy.  I'm saying this so you _don't_ destroy something that makes you happy.  You love this thing that you have with him, right?"

"Yes," Louis said.

"It makes you happy?"

"Yes."

" _He_ makes you happy?"

" _Yes_."

Niall gazed up at him.  "Then let him be what he is.  Let him be the thing that makes you happy.  Because _he_ is the thing that makes you happy.  Not what you're gonna ask him to be.  Okay?  Remember that."

Louis turned his head to look out the window, covering his mouth, then looked back down at Niall.  "God, fuck you."  

Niall pushed himself up off the center console, and reached out to turn the boom box back on.  "Time to rock out with your broom out, bro."

"I don't think that's how that saying normally goes."

"Yeah, well, I've had enough cocks to last a lifetime.  And if you tell anyone about that, you're dead."

Louis shoved the door open, and slipped out of the truck.  "Niall, are you suggesting sucking cocks is something to be ashamed of?"

"Of course not.  But I've got enough chicks following me around begging them to eat them out, I don't need you guys to start, too."

Louis stood there, leaning on the open door, squinting in the sun.  "You know, if any other guy said that, I would think it's bullshit, but you?  You, I believe."

Niall's face lit up, and he leaned across the cab to grab the door handle.  "I'm one of a kind, man.  Now shut the door, you're letting all the A/C out."

"Love you too!" Louis shouted, as the door slammed in his face.  Circling around the back of the truck to grab the broom, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Niall's grinning face, and Niall's hands held up, making the shape of a heart.

  
*  


Louis was walking Harry home from the aquarium, it was night, they were crossing over to Sandpiper, in the middle of Ocean, stopped on the yellow lines waiting for a break in the traffic, they were holding hands, like they had held hands between the blue glowing tanks in the dark, like they had kissed watching the stingrays fluttering beautiful out the corners of their eyes, they were running across a lane of traffic, warm breeze off the beach at their backs, they were jumping onto the curb, hands tangled together, and someone from a passing car called, "Watch it, faggots!"

Harry's head whipped around as fast as the traffic, his whole body taut.  

"Hey, chill out," Louis said, soft so only Harry could hear it.  The car was already at a stoplight down the block, two guys in the front, two girls in the back, both holding glowsticks and souvenir cocktail cups from 459, one of them leaning forward to smack the driver in the back of the head, one of them turning around to shout "Sorry!" before the light changed.  "They're not gonna start anything," Louis said, stroking his thumb over the inside of Harry's wrist.

"I know they're not.  That's not the point."

"I know that's not the point."  He tugged Harry's hand.  "Come on."

They walked up Sandpiper to Louis' house, where they were far enough from the beach that they couldn't hear the waves, just crickets, where the air was still.  The windows of all his neighbors' houses glowed with the flickering blue of televisions, like stingray tanks, there was a laugh track floating out the window of his own living room.  Harry bowed his head and let Louis kiss him, but didn't kiss back.  He kept hold of Louis' hand as Louis climbed the front steps, but didn't follow him up.  Louis looked back.  "You coming in?" 

"Nah.  I think I'm just gonna go home."

"Harry."

"I'm just tired."

Someone paused the television, and through the window came the chorus of the girls: "Hi, Harry!"

Louis gestured to the window with his free hand.  "See?" he whispered.

"Hi, ladies!" Harry called to the window, then looked back up at Louis, said more softly: "I'm just gonna go home."

Louis came back down the steps, freed his hand from Harry's, took Harry's face between his palms.  He remembered back when he had tried to imagine what this would feel like, cradling Harry's face in his hands, stroking his fingers down the curve of Harry's jaw, he remembered back before he didn't know, and it seemed like ages.  "Please," he said.  "Please stay tonight," and Harry nodded, touched their foreheads together, followed him up the steps, scooped out ice cream sundaes for his sisters inside the lamplit house, helped him pull out the couch and smooth the sheets over the mattress after all the girls had gone to bed, and when they were lying together in the dark, Louis stroked Harry's head, and made a fist softly in the waves of Harry's hair, and asked, "Do you want to cry?  You might feel better if you cry," and Harry shook his head but he did, hot tears against Louis' shoulder, running saltwater over his collarbones, arms wrapped around Louis tight.

Louis woke the next morning to see his mom and Harry in the kitchen, making Mickey-shaped pancakes for the girls, and one of the twins sitting on top of him, whispering in his ear: "Harry is the best boyfriend.  I want it to be his birthday."  Louis rolled over, folding her into his arms, tucking up his legs, kissing the top of her head and hugging her with his whole body.  "I know," he said.  "I know."

  
*  


It was a Sunday afternoon, bright, the sun in his eyes as he skated slow and lazy down Harry's end of Ocean Avenue, without knowing if Harry was home, taking the long way around because he had time, kicking off the asphalt a few times for speed and leaning his body into the curve up onto Beach, almost humming with how excellent it felt; he recognized the red Mustang in the lot at the Captain's Lodge first, and then a couple of Audis next to it, all black and navy blue.  He slowed to a stop on the patch of grass between the lot and the street, leaned against the picket fence that separated the two, and texted Harry: _Are you having a fancy lunch_?

_how did you know?_ Harry texted back.

_Saw the mustang in the lot_.

_you outside?  right now?_

_yup_.

Within a minute Harry was walking across the lot toward him, in a suit jacket and jeans, shirt tucked in and buttoned all the way to the top button, fanning himself with a greeting-card envelope and shading his eyes with one hand.

"This is good," Louis said, reaching out to run his fingers down the line of buttons.  "This is a good look for you."

"Yeah?  I'll break out the button-downs more often."

"Please."

Harry grinned, and folded a hand over Louis'.  "What are you doing down here?"

"I was gonna drop by the house, actually.  See if you wanted to do anything."

"Oh.  No.  It's my cousin's engagement party."  He pulled Louis' hand away from his shirt, threaded his fingers through Louis' own.  His eyes lit up.  "You should come!"

"To your cousin's engagement party?"

"Yes!"

"To the engagement party of your cousin, who I don't know?"

"Yes!  Please!  It'll be fine, I promise," Harry said, then paused.  "Please save me from my family."

Louis laughed.  "What a convincing argument.  'It'll be fine!  Everyone in there is horrible!'"

"They're not horrible," Harry said.  "I just -- I _hate_ these things."

Louis looked down at his t-shirt and cutoff sweatpants.  "I think I'm a little underdressed."

"We can go to your house to get changed.  Is that a yes?  Wait here, I'll get somebody's keys."

They drove back, let themselves in, Harry swung both keyrings around his finger while he dug through the bottom of the closet Louis shared in his sisters' room with his other hand, Louis sat on the bunk bed rolling up his pants, shirt still unbuttoned, then turned around and ran his fingers through the stripes of sunshine on the blanket, daylight coming in through the blinds.  

"These," Harry said, pulling out Louis' dress shoes.

Louis scrunched his face.  "They're scuffed."

"It's cute.  It's in style."

"Okay, GQ," Louis said, standing.  "I'll be right back, I gotta go shave."

" _No_ ," Harry whined.  "Don't shave, don't do your hair.  You look perfect."

"You either get bedhead or stubble, not both," Louis said.  "I'm not meeting your family with both."

"Fine.  Shave."

Harry followed him into the bathroom, stood stooped with his chin on Louis' shoulder while the electric razor buzzed, eyes trained on Louis' reflection, gaze meeting Louis' in the mirror, and he reached around Louis' body to touch the expanse of Louis' throat, the muscles in Louis' jaw as they flexed.  "Watch it," Louis said.  "You're gonna get your fingers shaved off."  Harry grinned, ran his hand inside Louis' open shirt instead, fingertips across Louis' chest, holding him close.  When he was freshly shaved, Harry turned him around, buttoned his shirt, kissed him on his cheek, gently, only a little wet, and Louis could feel all of it, so vividly on his newly smooth skin.  "Watch it," he said again, whispering this time.  "You want me to come to this party, or you want me to stay home and jerk off?"

"The second one," Harry said.  "Let's both do the second one," and started unbuttoning Louis' buttons.

"Stop!" Louis scolded him. "You're a bad influence."

"The _worst_ ," Harry said, planting a kiss on his chest, sitting down on the lid of the toilet to work on the buttons lower down.

"No, seriously though, come on," Louis said.  "If you want me to go to this thing I will."  He brought his own hands up, pushed Harry's away, began closing up his shirt.  He turned to leave the bathroom, but Harry caught him by the pants pocket, pulled him back, hugged him around his hips and nestled his face against his belly.  "What now?" Louis asked.

"I just love you," Harry murmured, into the fabric of his shirt.  "Just wanted to say hey."

At the Captain's, Harry opened the door for him, followed him in, walked behind him guiding him through the restaurant with two hands on his shoulder.  They had the room in the back, for private parties, tables with silver ice buckets and bottles of chilling white wine, platters with half-finished red lobsters, creamy pale plates littered with crab claws.  The double doors were opened onto the patio over the water, waves deep blue today, shining, points of white light sparkling in the sun, and aunts and uncles and older cousins kept ducking out for cigarettes, little kids weaving through their legs, rumpling their dress clothes, horsing around.  A waitress in a white shirt and black vest slipped into the room, holding a tray aloft.  "Ooh, tiny pastries," Louis said.  "I love tiny pastries."

" _Me too_ ," Harry said.  "Gosh, we have so much in common."  

They picked over what was left of the lobsters, stood destroying a ring of shrimp cocktail, "I'm gonna get you some real food," Harry said, and came back with grilled scallops over a salad, they sat at the corner of one of the empty tables and shared it, nudging a cherry tomato back and forth with their forks, "You eat it," "No, you," when the tiny pastries came around again they loaded dessert plates up with mini eclairs and petits fours, little slices of chocolate cake and the world's smallest doughnut, "When you propose to me," Harry said, "do it with a ring made out of tiny doughnut."  "I like how you just assume I would marry you," Louis said.  "I want you to propose to me with a ring made out of tiny doughnut," Harry countered, "why _wouldn't_ you marry me?"  Louis plucked a carnation out of one of the vases and tucked it in Harry's jacket pocket.  Harry picked out a rose, and tucked it behind Louis' ear.  When Louis wandered off to find the men's room and wandered back again, he saw Harry across the room, jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled up.  The filed-down thorns of the rose kept tugging at his hair, and he left it on the table before he walked over to Harry.  They were standing together, dumping sugars in their coffees, when an uncle or a friend of the family, Louis wasn't really sure, said hello.

"Oh, hey," Harry said, putting his hand on Louis' back.  "This is my friend Louis."

Louis flexed his shoulders, he knew Harry could feel his shoulderblades rolling beneath his skin, before holding out his hand.  "Pleasure to meet you."

After three more introductions, Louis pulled Harry aside, "Hey, hey, come here a minute," into the coat check no one was using, holding him by the elbow.  "It's fine if you're not out to your family, but no fair bringing me here and pulling _this is my friend_ without any warning."

"I'm sorry," Harry said.

"I just want to know who I'm here as."

"Just a friend, for today.  I'm sorry.  Just a friend."

Louis went out onto the patio, bummed a cigarette and a light off a girl in a seersucker dress.  The angle of the sun had the patio in blue shade now, and strings of bare incandescent bulbs were burning overhead.  He took a drag off the cigarette, closed his eyes and felt his brain clear as the nicotine hit it, wiry buzz running through his body.  When he opened his eyes, Harry's mom was standing next to him.

"You mind sharing?" she asked, and he handed off the cigarette, and she handed it back with lipstick prints.

They talked about the weather, what a nice day, when a waiter came around with champagne she took two glasses and gave one to Louis, sliced strawberry floating in the middle, and said, "You're not just a friend, are you?"

He opened his mouth, and closed it again.  "Um."

"It's okay," she said, "I know he's bi."

So that was the label Harry used, when he had to use a label.  Louis nodded.  "Yeah, not really," he said.  "I was trying _not_ to be obvious about it."

"Probably no one else noticed.  I'm his mom, moms can tell."

"That's true," Louis said.  "How do they do that?"

"Special mom powers.  I'm sworn to secrecy."

"Bummer," Louis said, offering the cigarette back.  "I'll have to infiltrate mom headquarters."

She shook her head.  "You could _never_."

Down the other end of the patio, someone dropped a cigarette into the water.  Louis stubbed his out on the railing, then tucked it into a potted plant.

"So, you're from around here?" Harry's mom asked.

"Yup."

"That's nice.  My family was from this area.  I used to come here all the time as a girl.  That's part of the reason we decided to rent down here this summer."

"What was the other reason?"

"It was Harry's idea, actually," she said.  "Some of his friends from school were working down here when Sandy hit.  They told him how hard the beach communities were struggling to get back on their feet, how important this summer would be for the businesses down here."

"Of _course_ ," Louis said.  "Of course.  Harry vacations for charity."

She laughed.  "He...always has his reasons.  For better or for worse.  I'm glad he made a friend down here, actually."  Air quotes around _friend_ , a little secret that they were sharing.  "I'm glad he's enjoying himself.  He tries so hard to make everyone _else_ happy, and he always overthinks things--"

"Yeah," Louis said.  "Yeah, he doesn't have to put too much thought into fucking around with some local.  He's just enjoying himself."

She squeezed her eyes shut.  "No.  No, that's not what I meant, I'm sorry."  She started to lay a hand on his arm, then pulled back.  "I've fucked this up, haven't I?"

"A little bit."

"Well."  She pushed herself off the railing.  "I did want to say thank you for coming. You seem like you...have his back.  I appreciate that.  He always gets so nervous at these things."

Louis looked through the glass doors at Harry, dancing with one of the littlest cousins between the tables, twirling her so her ruffled skirt swung out like a tutu around her.  " _Harry_?  Are we talking about the same Harry?"

"I think he thinks everyone's judging him," she said, "and to be honest, some of them probably are.  You know when he was little, he used to cry to me about how he'd never live up to his sister?"

"She did grow up to have a better car than him," Louis said.

Her chuckle sounded a little like Harry's: deep, musical.  "True."  She looked up at the lights swinging in the breeze.  "You should come by the house sometime.  _Really_ come by.  You don't have to sneak in when all the grown-ups are gone."

"And here we thought we were getting away with something."

"I told you," she said.  "Moms always know."

Back inside, chill of air conditioning down his back, Louis sat on a table with some of the cousins he knew from the house, drank champagne till his chest felt bubbly, handed the alcohol-soaked strawberries off to Harry and watched Harry lift the littlest kids, laughing, into the air, patio lights twinkling through the glass behind him.  "I really am your friend," he said, on the way out to the car, Harry's arm slung over his shoulders.  "I hate that phrase, _just friends_.  It's not _just_ anything."  

"Get in," Harry said, smiling, pressing a hand to Louis' chest, pushing him down into the passenger seat.  "You're drunk.  And have you been smoking?"

"Your _mom_ 's been smoking.  I met your mom, by the way.  She's both nice and judge-y."

Harry nodded.  "That's an astute assessment."

"You and your Ivy League words."

"Bullshit," Harry said.  "You have a bigger vocabulary than me.  You just like to hide it."

"I mean it, though," Louis said at Harry through the windshield, and then as he folded himself into the driver's seat.  "Friend is the most important thing."

  
*  


They spent the night together, went back to the house with the rest of the family for coffee, sat in the kitchen with everyone else who'd drank too much while Louis sobered up, and when Harry's mom made an excuse for his absence, fluttering her hands at them in the doorway as a signal to _just go_ , they took the stairs two at a time, locking themselves in the bedroom and laughing against the door.  

In bed, in the dark shot through with white slices of moonlight, Louis' hands drew the lines of Harry's shoulders, and Louis asked, "So, who aren't you out to?"

Harry looked at him.  "What do you mean?"

"Your mom said she knows you're bi--"

"Ugh, labels."

"--so obviously you're out to her.  You're out to your sister, you're out to your cousins.  So who doesn't know?"

"Oh," Harry said, shifting under Louis' touch, letting Louis pull him closer. "Most of the grown-ups, mostly.  A couple of my aunts know, and like one of my uncles, mostly on my mom's side.  But a lot of them are, you know, _conservative_."

"What would they do if they knew?" Louis asked.

"Probably?  Nothing.  Well, no, a couple of them, like -- honestly, I don't think I would ever be allowed near their children again.  And anyone who did that, I guarantee, my stepdad would not talk to them anymore.  But probably, most of them wouldn't do anything, at least not to my face.  I'd still see them at family things, I'd still get a bunch of questions about when I'm going to get another job."

Louis kissed Harry's chest.  "So if nothing would happen, why don't you tell them?"

"It's just a lot of explaining," Harry said.  "Like, there's no natural way to bring it up in a conversation, you have to tell them like it's this big thing, and then you have to be like, 'Oh, by the way, don't tell Uncle Jack or Aunt Tiffany.  Definitely don't tell Aunt Abigail.'  It makes it feel like some sin you're confessing, like they're absolutely justified in thinking you're weird.  And like, I'm already that weird kid that makes them make tofu turkey at Thanksgiving."

Louis slid his hands out from under Harry's body, and propped himself up on his forearms.  "That's seriously all you're afraid of?  Your family thinking you're weird?  You, of all people?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're just so, like, confident," Louis said.  "Like everybody who's ever met you has loved you.  I didn't think you'd be scared of something like that."

"Louis, everybody who's met me has loved me _because_ I'm scared of something like that."

"I hate to break it to you," Louis said, "but people like you because you're polite, and funny, and sweet, and you believe in things, and you're like a fucking New Age spiritual leader with how Zen and patient you are, and you're gorgeous, which makes it even more charming, because if you wanted to you could just be a dick."

Harry shook his head.  "You seriously don't know what Zen is."

Louis rolled his eyes.  "All right, well, whatever the word for super chill and patient about shit is."

"But that's the point, though, like, I'm _not_ that chill," Harry said.  "I might not show it much, but things do bother me.  I do get nervous about shit.  I do get frustrated.  I don't want to make it sound like I just go through life being what other people want me to be, poor me, because I really like being patient, and I really like being nice to people, and I really like trying to be relaxed about things, but sometimes it feels like if I want to be those things, I can't be anything else."  He sat up, fluffing the pillows against the headboard behind him with one hand.  "I mean, I've complained to you about shit, I've _cried_ on you, and you're like, 'I didn't think you'd be scared.'  You've _seen_ me be scared, but you forget."

"Sorry," Louis said, lowering his head, brushing his lips against Harry's thigh.  "I still don't see how that means everyone loves you because you're scared of them thinking you're weird."

"Not because I'm scared of them thinking I'm weird, but because -- like, you say what you're thinking most of the time, that's how you come at the world, with all this honesty about everything, and I just don't have that instinct.  My instinct is like, say the nicest thing that's possible to say in this situation, what's the nicest thing I can do?  I just want people to be, like, comfortable around me.  I just want to make people happy."

"Do you include yourself in the definition of 'people'?"

"Wow, who's the fucking New Age spiritual leader now?"

Louis laughed, rolling over onto his back.  "Yeah, I'm Zen as fuck."

"Seriously," Harry said, leaning over, taking Louis' face in both his hands.  "Just look up Zen on Wikipedia or something, please."

"Never."

Harry laid his hand over Louis' forehead, smoothed back Louis' hair.  "I love that you're not burdened by the instinct to make people happy."

"That's not true," Louis said.

"No?"

"No.  I want to make you happy."

"Oh, _please_ ," Harry said, pretending to barf over the side of the bed.  

Louis laughed, grabbed Harry around the waist, pulled Harry down into the white moonlight with him, ignoring Harry when he said _shh_ , they were going to wake everyone, _shh_ , and in the moonlight he pinned Harry beneath him, the green of Harry's eyes pale when they looked at each other, the ink of his tattoos stark black on his skin, and Louis held him there a long time to remind himself that Harry was real, even the parts of him Louis didn't see, even the parts of him Louis didn't remember.

  
*  


They spent more time at home as August wore on.

Home being with Louis' mom and sisters, standing on the sandy front lawn watching the girls ride bikes up and down the street, in the backyard with the girls feeding the stray kittens they thought were living under the shed, gray balls of fluff with green eyes that darted away every time they heard the screen door open.  Home being the curb in front of his house, waiting with the girls for the Italian ice truck to come slowly up the block and put out its pennant of a STOP sign, lights flashing and music box tune tinkling out of the bullhorn speakers.  Jingling coins in their hands, for Italian ice, for trips they promised to the arcade.  Harry in the kitchen teaching the girls how to poach an egg, how to make buttercream, how slice potatoes thin and fry them into potato chips they sprinkled with salt, and a little vinegar for Louis.  Folded laundry.  Done dishes.  Plastic ponies with broken legs glued back together.  The bright white light of the lamps, _The Little Mermaid_ on repeat, the chime of Charlie's phone announcing a text message, Louis stealing a kiss where little eyes couldn't see, whispering _I love you_ where little ears couldn't hear.  Macaroni and cheese, pizza, chocolate milks with dark syrup still coating the bottom of the glass.  Rainbow sprinkles, raw cookie dough by the slice, whipped cream they ate passing the can around between the six of them.  Louis and Harry sitting on the front steps after midnight, moths ringing a winged cloud around the porch light so it flickered like fire over them, held hands, tangled legs, his mom and his girls eavesdropping at the window, Louis and Harry laughing every time they gave themselves away.  And at night, lying together, finally alone, who was the big spoon and who was the little spoon, it didn't matter.

Home being the beach, always a short walk away, on the weekdays, when it wasn't as crowded, lying out in the sun on the pale sand, taking turns dipping themselves in the cool ocean, muscular waves pushing them back toward the shore, sleeping side-by-side, relaxed in the heat.  Home being the boardwalk they stalked like they owned it, under skies streaked purple and orange at the beginning of the night, barefoot and warm wrapped in striped towels, shoes dangling from their fingertips, they rode the carousel at Brinks so often the girl at the gate let them sneak in for free, they played skee-ball so much they were constantly finding animal erasers and arcade tokens in their bathing suit pockets.  Home being the parking lot after the amusement park closed for the night, streetlamps snapping off above them, kissing in the backseat of the Mustang, hands roaming, sounds of their panting breath inseparable -- "Your sister would be so mad if she knew what we were using her car for," Louis said, and Harry said "It's nothing she hasn't done before,"  "What kind of family _are_ you?" Louis asked, and Harry answered "Slutty, not chaste" -- and when Harry drove Louis home and dropped him on the corner of his block, they'd both be aching, and when Louis leaned in to kiss Harry through the rolled-down window, they'd press their foreheads together instead, and want to stay there forever.

Home being the house, where Louis would brake the truck no matter how many lights were on, no matter which cars were in the driveway, and honk, and wait.  Some nights it would be Harry's mom who crossed the lawn and leaned against the driver's side door, saying "He's not home, baby.  Try the boardwalk."  Some nights it would be Harry himself ambling across the green grass, smile spreading slow across his face, pushing his hair back with one hand, and depending on who was home, some nights he'd cross his arms on the edge of the window and just say hi, breathing slow as he stared at Louis' face, and Louis would blush from the attention, grip the steering wheel with both hands and brace himself against it, but some nights he would yank the driver's side door open and lean his whole body in to kiss Louis, fingers pressing into Louis' hips, so sudden Louis wasn't sure if he would ever catch his breath.  Some nights Harry snuck him in, quiet, when no one was looking, but some nights he pulled him by the hand through the living room where everyone was watching TV, sat him in his lap on the couch, told him it was time for bed when he yawned, and brought him bleary-eyed into the kitchen in the morning.  Some nights they curled in Harry's bed together, under Harry's blankets, talking softly about nothing till they fell asleep, and some nights they woke a little before sunrise, roused by the sound of a garbage truck or an aunt's dog scratching at the downstairs door, and in the darkness, heads on each other's shoulders, the entire length of their bodies pressed together, they breathed slow like if they held their breath they could stop the sky from turning light outside the window, and it felt like the entire world revolved around their axis, and those were the best nights of all.

They spent more time at home as August wore on, they didn't want to leave the town, their houses, their beds.

  
*  


A rainy Saturday afternoon, dark clouds constantly rolling in, an echo of thunder all up and down the shore, they sat in Cafe Blue near the window so they could watch the rain spattering down, Louis slumped in his chair and stretching his legs across under the table, resting his crossed heels on the sliver of chair between Harry's between thighs, half-eaten salmon burger on his plate, Harry reaching over the table to lift the bun and steal a slice of avocado.  

"How _dare_ you," Louis said, pulling Harry's plate toward him and plucking a slice of pear out of Harry's salad.  "I would _never_."

Harry shook his head, half-smile quirking his mouth.  "You are honestly the worst person," he said, and squeezed his legs together on Louis' ankles, affectionate, quick.  

They left with plastic cups of iced coffee, Louis with a plain caramel latte, Harry holding some whipped cream-topped monstrosity tight, they stepped out into the heavy wet heat and clung to each other under a single umbrella, hands wet from the condensation on their cups and the splashing in of the rain.  Louis had his jeans rolled up and his ankles were already wet, his Vans soaked through, Harry's hair was falling forward curling around his face, he held the umbrella because he was taller, and his grip was wobbly in the wind, trying to tilt it so the water didn't drip down Louis' back.

"What's the fucking _point_?" Louis said and stepped out from under the umbrella, running ahead as a bolt of white lightning split the sky, slicking his hair back from his face with rainwater as he sprinted forward through a downpour so thick it felt like swimming.  When he looked back Harry was there, running behind him -- swinging the still-open umbrella from one hand as he ran, mouth open and almost smiling, and when he caught up with Louis his eyelashes were matted, a bead of water rolled off his bottom lip, he set the umbrella and the coffee carefully on the ground, pinned Louis to the truck in the slowest motion.  "We are _not_ kissing in the rain," Louis said.  "We are not that cliche."

Harry dipped his head down to Louis' as an answer, pressed their lips together till Louis had no choice but to kiss back.

"We're gonna get struck by lightning," Louis whispered, as the sky lit up around them.

Harry shook his head; when he spoke, his lips brushed against Louis', wet feather touch that made Louis close his eyes so he could catch his breath.  "That's a chance of like one in five hundred thousand."

"Yeah, well, we're lucky."

Harry shook his head again, exhaled softly as he dragged his mouth down to the rain slick-skin of Louis' jaw, the point of his chin.  "Not that kind of lucky."

Another flash, thunder so quick after, and so close it vibrated through the metal of the truck.  Louis was acutely aware of people watching; he opened his eyes and there was nobody else on the street.  The last time they held hands in public, the night Harry lay crying in his arms, but the way their mothers smiled at them and whispered that they should stay together, the way Louis' little sisters thought Harry hung the moon.  Louis was breathing heavy now, and not from Harry's mouth moving down to kiss his throat.  He loved him so much.  The summer was ending soon.  "I think we are," Louis said.

  
*  


They could squeeze so much nothing into a single day.  Sunshine sitting on a bench outside Carousel, paper thing of cheese fries between them, keeping an eye out while the twins dragged driftwood sticks through the gravel near the edge of the parking lot, blue sky and eyes shaded each with one held-up hand.  Harry reached out to wipe cheese off Louis' chin, brought his thumb up to his own mouth and licked it off.  Passing a cold diet Pepsi back and forth, cool condensation sweating down the waxy sides of the cup, Harry ran his fingers around the peeling edge of the BENNY GO HOME sticker Charlie had stuck to the underside of Louis' skateboard (along with a piece of bright green apple bubblegum) and said: "Heyyy."  Louis leaned a head on his hard warm shoulder.  "Not you," he said.  "Not you."

Lying on Harry's bed in the late afternoon, making out to "Hotel California," on top of the blankets, purple tie-dye tapestry soft against his back when Harry slid the hem of his t-shirt up, opening strains of silvery guitar taut, Louis hated this song but when Harry jammed his fingers in under the waistband of his jeans he saw sparking sunlight off every note.  He had to swallow hard till the song was over.

"Is this another version of 'Hotel California'?" he asked as the playlist switched over to the next song, he lifted his head and looked around the room.  Harry was mouthing his dick through his jeans, hot breath through the denim, but.  "Is this 'Hotel California' in Spanish?"

Harry crawled up his body, lay against him flat like at least he had the good sense to be ashamed.  "It was in _The Big Lebowski_."

Louis took Harry's face in both hands.  "That's your favorite movie, isn't it?"

"It's a good movie!"

"I could go for a White Russian right now," Louis said, lolling his head to one side.

"What's _your_ favorite movie?"

" _The Fox and the Hound_."

"Oh, _Louis_."  

Harry bent his head to kiss Louis' cheek, nudged himself forward to lay his head against Louis' bared neck, and eventually they finished what they had started, pulling the jeans off and panting in afternoon shade, pulling the jeans back on again as they dressed on opposite sides of the bed, and when they were done they turned around and leaned across the mattress to kiss, just once, soft and noses touching.

Downstairs in the kitchen afterward, lit up by the refrigerator light, sitting on the floor in front of an open cabinet searching for the bottle of Kahlúa, "I know it's in here," Harry said over and over again, "I know I saw it after the party," and Louis sat with his back against the cabinet door, his legs under Harry's body, Louis brought his knees up to touch Harry's ribs and smiled at him as "I am _going_ to make you a White Russian," Harry said, and when he finally found the Kahlúa behind a box of cereal he held it in the air, as high as his long arm would let him, roaring, triumphant, and after Louis crawled to the refrigerator to grab the milk, he shut the door, and they mixed their drinks right there on the floor, in the dark, kissing the coffee and alcohol milk mustaches off each other's lips.  "Stay the night," Harry said after their fourth or fifth drink, leaning so far into Louis he ended up with him pinned against the ground, "Stay forever."  Louis slid one hand up between their bodies and pressed his fingertips to Harry's lips, wiping the sweet liqueur away.  "Same to you," he said, and licked his fingers, tasting the sugar, and the bitter alcohol, and his own salt, same as the ocean.

  
*  


Late on an August afternoon, sun slanting in across his back, wet bathing suit, wet hair, both sticking to his skin, as he bent to dig through the clothes on the floor of Harry's room, chilly in the central air.  Half his t-shirts were here now.  There was a pair of his Vans under the bed.  "I might have packed it," Harry said when Louis asked where his chambray was, and ducked into the bathroom to sling his wet trunks over the side of the shower.  The suitcase was in the closet, Louis laid it down on the rag rug, Louis flipped it open.  He slipped his hands into all the little compartments, feeling his fingers over miniature bottles of mouthwash, empty eyeglass cases, the heart-print t-shirt Harry hadn't been able to find all summer, fabric so thick and new it felt foreign to think about it against Harry's skin; already zippered into one of the sides, the tiny pink spoon from the time they went for gelato in Belmar, one of the placemats from The Marlin, Louis wasn't sure which time, because schools of Pac-Man ghosts were all he ever drew.  "I wanted to make sure I took it home," Harry said when Louis made a joke but not a joke about it all being packed away already.  "I wanted to make sure I didn't forget."

Louis snorted and stood up, zippering it all back shut again.

"What," Harry said, "are you mad?  That I put things in a suitcase?"

"I'm not mad," Louis said.

"That is like, the maddest thing people ever say."

"I'm not _mad_."

Harry hauled the suitcase back into the closet. "You knew I was leaving."

"I know I knew you were leaving!" Louis huffed, hating how upset he sounded.  "I'm not bothered because you're leaving.  I'm bothered because -- like, you didn't even wait till the end of the summer to pack it away.  You like stuck it in a box as a nice little memory from the very beginning."

Harry turned back from the closet to face him, lifted his hands and then let them fall back down to his sides.  "Louis, this is so stupid."

"Don't say what I feel is stupid!"

"All right."

"I never said what _you_ feel is stupid."

"All right!  You're right!  I'm _sorry_."

Louis glared at him, then looked away, jaw set.

Harry stepped toward him, slowly, like approaching a bird.  Louis hated it, hated being babied like this.  "I just think you're getting hung up on semantics," Harry said.

"No I'm not," Louis said.  "I don't know what semantics is."

"I'll put it on the list with Zen."

"Not right now, Harry."

"Okay.  Come here."  Harry reached out and took Louis by both hands, walked backward never taking his eyes off him, and sank down on the edge of the bed, pulling Louis straddling into his lap, clasping his hands behind Louis' back to hold him there.  Secure.  "I just -- I don't see how it's a bad thing?  That I wanted to keep it where I would take it home with me?"

"It's not a bad thing.  It just hurts."

Softer now: "Okay."  Harry let himself fall back on the bed, pulling Louis down to lie on top of him, and he rubbed slow circles across Louis' bare back as Louis took a shaky breath, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.  Harry tucked his head to try and get a look at him: "Are you crying?"

"Yes.  I cry about shit too, you know."

"I know," Harry said.  He brought his hand up to cradle the back of Louis' head, the dumb feathery fine hair so much longer than in the beginning of the summer, and Louis felt Harry's fingers slip soft through it, like something he couldn't hold, like it was water in his hands.  "I think maybe we need to talk about this," Harry said.

Louis shook his head.  "I don't want to talk about it right now."  He pushed his face against Harry's shoulder, blocking out all the light, as good as having his eyes closed, but from the tiny movements that rippled through the muscles in Harry's chest, in Harry's neck, he could tell Harry was nodding: _okay, not now, not now_.  He stayed there, against Harry's warm chest, curling his fingers against Harry's warm sides, and he wasn't sure if he fell asleep, he wasn't sure if he just let his mind wander to nothing, but when he lifted his head again, Harry had pulled a blanket around them, and the room was dark.

  
*  


"Take me to do something you did when you were a kid," Harry said, so on a blue-sky day when it wasn't too warm, early enough that they were all still sleepy, they piled in the truck with the girls, the four kids squeezed across the back seat, holding the coolers and the tackle box on their laps, Harry riding shotgun with the old folded crab cages propped against his legs, squinting in the sun while Louis drove them out to Windward Beach in Brick.  The walked down the path and out toward the end of the pier, expanse of blue-gray water stretching away on either side of them, sunshine sparkling off the wind-kicked waves, all the way to the green-grassy, green-tree shores.  "What do I do?" Harry asked as Louis and Charlie got down on the boards next to the crab cages, tying raw chicken necks into them with fishing wire, knotting lengths of white rope to the tops, sawing it off from the spool with the pocketknife their grandfather gave them.  "For now?" Louis answered.  "Nothing."  The twins and Fee ran down the shore end of the pier and tiptoed through the sand to the edge of the lapping water, dipping a bucket in and filling it almost to the top, it took all three of them to carry it back.  When the traps were ready Louis handed the first one by the rope to Harry and said, "Do the honors."  All four girls applauded when he dropped it over the edge into the river.

Bursts of white light off the water, sun in their eyes.  They rubbed sunscreen on the twins' arms and legs.  They reminded Charlie to rub it in the part in her hair.  White rope looped around the railing, slack blowing over the water in the wind.  Pulling up to check the traps, and Louis showed Harry how to drop the cage on the pier so all four sides would fall open, crab sidestepping out onto the sunshine of the deck, and the girls fought to be the first to catch it in the tongs, and measure it against the four-inch marks someone had scratched into the two-by-fours of the railing, the width of the shell point-to-point, calling back to Louis if it was big enough to keep.  Nudging the too-small ones off the edge of the pier with the toes of their sneakers, or circling them so they'd stay on the boards, walking backward, blue claws waving in the air.  "They really do walk like that," Harry said, amazed.  Saltwater-wet hands from hauling up the soaked ropes.  The bucket of crabs big enough to take home.  Harry and Charlie stretched out side-by-side napping flat on the boards at the end of the pier, Louis sitting leaning his back against against a railpost, watching the twins pull up and splash down the cage they'd claimed as their own, Fee flipping through a magazine in her lap.  Lunchtime, snacktime: sandwiches from Pathmark, clementines upon clementines, a bag of potato chips that almost blew away and a box of Entenmann's chocolate chip cookies, two glass bottles of orange soda they passed between them, green grapes and bananas.  Crooked blue shadows Harry and the girls cast crabwalking to the end of the pier, the color of the water.  Harry's head in his lap, the sunshine warm on their backs, the photos of the sunset Harry snapped on his phone, the river to the west a sheet of white light.

They dropped the girls at home after dark, with the crab cages and the bucket, and watched his mom shepherd them in the front door.  "Just keep driving," Louis said when Harry turned to him, and Harry did, out of town and over the curving abandoned back roads, white pines rising up out of the darkness to tower over them, double yellow lines twisting away ahead, the entire world compressed down to what was illuminated in the the headlights.  Louis turned his head to look at Harry's face in the glow of the dashboard.  Louis turned his head to look out the window: in the rising moonlight, bent-down grass by the side of the road, trees in their sandy soil, torn-open fields and pastures clear of horses, and houses he knew by heart, the same as they had always been, he used to drive through the dark all the time.  "Are you okay?" Harry asked.  "I'm fine," Louis answered.  At a stop sign on Squankum Yellowbrook, idling, the only car on the road, Harry said, "I'll keep driving till you tell me to stop," and Louis said, "Stop."  Harry took them to the all-night diner and they sat on the same side of the pink vinyl-backed booth, darkness pressing against the plate-glass windows, Louis ordered corned beef hash and eggs sunny-side up, Harry had banana pancakes and a side of fruit salad, Louis leaned his head on Harry's shoulder, Harry leaned his head on Louis' head.  They whispered that they loved each other.  They were the only customers in the place.  The waitress would have refilled their coffees for as long as they wanted to stay.  They tipped half the check.   When they got home, the lights were long off, and Louis led Harry inside and pulled out the couch and made up the mattress without flipping a single switch.  They kissed, and they could feel each other smiling in the dark.  Louis ducked his head to blink his eyelashes against Harry's chest, and Harry shivered, his hands gripping in the hair at the nape of Louis' neck.  They talked about nothing, and fell asleep to the rhythm of their own breath.

  
*  


Another dinner at Louis' house, sitting at the table afterward with seven empty plates scraped clean of hot dogs and mac-and-cheese and green salad, the girls all scattered to somewhere else, Louis' mom at the sink starting to wash the dishes.  

"Harry, how much longer are you here for?" she asked.

Harry had gotten up to help clear the table.  Louis dumped a forkful of relish on his own plate, and ate it slowly.  "Like a week and a half," Harry said.  "Or like two.  Why, you can't wait to get rid of me?"  His eyes were twinkling; he bumped his hip against hers.  Louis screwed the cap back on the relish jar.

" _Please_ ," she said.  "More like wondering if your mom would like to trade sons."

"She just might," Harry said.  "She'd definitely be getting the better end of the deal."

Later, when Louis slipped out the front door to sit on the steps, under the porch light, halo of moths, Harry followed him: "Louis, we need to talk about this."

"Not yet, we don't."

"Then when, exactly?"

Louis looked up at him, could see the porch light catching his own eyelashes, white as the wings of the moths.  Harry folded his body down to sit on the top step, busied himself rolling up the sleeves of his t-shirt, and Louis held his bicep, rubbing his fingertips over the soft tattoo-speckled skin.  Louis had always loved how substantial every handful of him felt, everywhere Louis could hold a handful: his thighs, his arms, the soft flesh just above his hips and the weight of his calves. Even before he had ever held Harry, he knew how solid he would feel.

Another night in the backyard at Harry's, sitting in white Adirondack chairs on the brick patio, half-empty bottles of craft beers brought down from the city by their feet, fire dying in the firepit.  One by one, or two by two, carrying on their own hushed conversations about what to pack, when to get out on the road, everyone else cleared out: Harry's parents, Harry's cousins, Harry's sister.  She stopped to stoop down and loop her arms around Louis' neck.  "It's been good having you," she said; it was her last night in the house.  

"It's been good having your car," he said.

She shoved him away, playful.  Louis curled a lock of her hair around his finger and watched it unwind, and then he heard the sliding door behind him, and then she was gone.  

When they were all alone, the last of the fire down to ashes, dampness cooling the night air around them, Harry looked at him.  "I need to know what you want to do.  I need to know how--"

"We'll figure it out," Louis cut him off.  

"Why can't we figure it out _now_?  I don't understand why you keep wanting to wait.  Are you trying to pretend this--"

Louis climbed into Harry's lap, hands on Harry's shoulders, kissed him and arched his back to press against him.

"Don't try to distract me," Harry said, holding Louis' hips back with both hands.  He turned his face away from Louis', wouldn't let Louis touch his lips.  

"I'm not," Louis said.  "I don't want to talk about it yet."

"Do you want me to just call you from the Turnpike, or?"

"Don't be stupid.  You're gonna take the Parkway."

" _Louis_.  Come _on_.  Why don't you want to talk about this?"

He sat back, settled with his butt on Harry's knees and his legs on either side of Harry's own, toes of his Vans touching the brick patio to support half his own weight.  "I don't want to ruin what little time we have left by talking about how it's going to end."

"But it doesn't have to--"

" _No_."

Harry still took him up to bed that night.  After they picked up all the beer bottles and pulled out the garden hose to spray down the ashes, Harry held his hand and walked him slowly up the stairs, and even though the house was full, he jerked him off gently, whispering "Remember to be quiet," in his ear, "Remember to be quiet," so Louis came gasping, shuddering, eyes squeezing shut in relief when Harry held a hand soft over his mouth to help, whispering _shh, shh_ , and when his body was soft and yielding, Harry gathered him into his arms, kissing his warm skin.

  
*  


In the middle of the week, Zayn brought Harry's car down from Connecticut, brought a couple of their friends from Princeton with him when he came.  They were there when Louis walked up the driveway at cicada-singing dusk: a scratched-up little silver Mercedes hatchback with a Grateful Dead sticker slapped on the bumper, and several boys laughing in the screened-in sunporch around back.  

Harry pushed the screen door open when he saw Louis standing outside, welcomed him in with a kiss.  

" _Nice_ Benz," Louis whispered, teasing, Harry's breath against his cheek.

"Shut up," Harry said.  "My sister left it sitting in the garage at my parents' place.  It was cheap.  It was _not_ what I would have chosen."

"Yeah, it's no Beetle."

"Shut _up_."  

Louis got up on tiptoes, wrapped his arms around Harry's neck and pulled him in to kiss him again, till one of the boys behind them wolf-whistled.  Harry laughed, shook his head, led Louis with an arm around his waist to where they were all sprawled on wicker sofas, pulled Louis down on his lap when he sat. Back in the house, the doorbell rang, and a minute later two girls emerged from the kitchen with pizza boxes piled in their arms.  Someone handed him a beer.  He leaned back and felt Harry solid and warm against him.  Conversations he wasn't involved in, people talking about people he didn't know, bands he had never heard, hummed around him.  "Doesn't she have _great_ eyebrows?" Harry asked, about the girl sitting on the arm of the couch.  "What _is_ it with you and eyebrows?" Louis asked back.  They went out to the patio, skin shining in the humid night, he stood at the corner of the bricks with Zayn while Zayn smoked, palming a basketball back and forth at each other and talking about comic books.  Harry hugged Louis hard while the girl with the eyebrows balled up newspaper pages for the firepit.  "Light it up!" someone called, and someone else said, "Speaking of..." and pulled a plastic baggie and a pack of rolling papers from his pocket.  Louis kissed Harry on the cheek and said, "That's my cue to leave."

"Wait, why?" Harry asked, following him around to the side of the house.  "Because the weed?  I can tell them we can't smoke tonight, if you want."

"That's dumb.  Have fun.  Call me tomorrow morning."

Harry caught him by the arm, ran his hand down till their fingers were intertwined.  "I don't want to call you in the morning.  We don't have that many nights left.  Can't you just stay?  I mean, you drink, I didn't think it would be--"

Louis untangled his fingers from Harry's, pulling his hand away.  "I'm not leaving because I'm _sober_.  I wasn't like, an _addict_.  This is a small town.  People here know me.  _Cops_ here know me.  And they know I've been good for six years, but they also know I only got the chance to be good because I got _lucky_.  How many of them do you think are gonna believe me when I say, 'I swear, officer, it belongs to my friend'?"

"You really think the cops are gonna come busting in here?" Harry asked.

"No, I don't think the cops are gonna come busting in a summer house full of frat boys from Princeton--"

"We don't have frats at Princeton."

"--but to be honest, I don't want to take that risk.  This _is_ my second chance, they're not gonna give me another one.  If someone catches me with something, if they even _smell_ it on me -- if my _mom_ smells it on me, do you know how worried she's gonna be?  Charlie's old enough to know I got in trouble, I told her what happened, how can I tell her to keep her nose clean if I--"

Harry held up his hands.  "Okay!  Okay, fine!  I get it!"

"No, I don't think you do," Louis said, starting across the grass, dark under his feet, past the rosebush trellises, smell of damp dirt rising up from beneath.  "I'm not just gonna be sitting here in this house with the rest of the furniture when you leave.  I have a life."

He heard Harry laugh behind him, bitterly: "Oh, _now_ you want to talk about what happens when I leave."

"And by the way," he said, turning to look at Harry, and then turning away again, crossing the border between the lawn and the driveway, "like, are you aware where that shit comes from?  Do you know how much violence there is up the supply chain?  For someone who's so sensitive and socially conscious and worried about saving people--"

"Wow, righteous is a _real_ good look on you."  Harry caught up with him, long strides, and wheeled around in front so Louis could get a good look at his face.  Brow furrowed, mouth open, looking as annoyed as Louis had ever seen him.

Louis let Harry stop him in his tracks.  His heart was beating faster now, under his sneakers he could feel the hard heat of the asphalt; it would stay warm well into the night.  "You're one to talk."

Harry crossed his arms.  "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, your mom told me all about your plan to help the beach communities get back on their feet by renting a house."  Louis was smiling.  He didn't even know why he was smiling.  "I mean, we're still just getting our schools back, we still don't have the dunes that are supposed to protect us, people still sank their savings into houses that were supposed to be foundations for their families and now they have nothing, people have no place to go because there still aren't enough _buildings_ standing to hold them all, but you helped.  You and your little house, you _really_ helped."

"Really, this?  _This_ is what you're gonna get offended about?"

"I could get offended about more if you want."

Harry uncrossed his arms, held a hand out acquiescently.  "Go ahead."

Louis shook his head.  "Don't be a prick."

"No, I mean it," Harry said.  "If there's something you need to tell me, tell me."

"You want to talk about what's gonna happen?" Louis asked.

"Yes."

Louis stepped toward him.  "How long do you think this is gonna last?  How long, if I come up every couple of weekends, you know, for a day?  How often are you gonna wanna come down here to sleep on my mom's couch with me?  Maybe it'll be easier if we just meet in the middle, in the city.  Spend a couple of hours in a coffee shop, and then a kiss goodbye?  How long do you think before it peters out?  And if by some miracle it doesn't, _if_ by some miracle we _do_ get past all that, when are you gonna tell your family?  Will we have to spend Christmases apart?  Thanksgivings?  Birthdays?"

Harry sighed. "This is why I wanted to _talk_ to you about it, Louis!  This is what we need to figure out!"

"All right, so what's your big solution?" Louis shouted.  "What's your big solution?"

They both stood still; the headlights of a passing car swelled and receded over them; in the white light Louis could see clearly Harry looking at the ground, chewing his bottom lip, arms crossed again.

"You know what your mom told me when we first met?" Louis asked.  He made his voice softer than it had been, he didn't want to yell anymore.  "That she was glad you found me because you overthink things, because you needed to just enjoy yourself."

"And she apologized for that."

"When your sister left, she said it was nice having me, like I've just been a guest here all this time."

"For someone who doesn't know what semantics are," Harry said, "you sure are good at them."

"You know what, _not_ the time to be smart, Harry."

Harry tossed his head.  "Well, when is, with you?"

" _Excuse_ me?"

"God forbid I try to make plans.  God forbid I try to fucking think things through.  You know what, you're right, I _don't_ have an answer for how long we can make this last.  I _don't_ have an answer for what happens if we do.  But maybe I could have, if you had fucking helped me come up with one."

Louis looked away.  The streetlight at the end of the block, the one that always flickered when they walked home late at night, finally shut off.  They dropped into darkness; aside from where he was limned by the house lights, Louis couldn't see Harry standing in front of him anymore.

"Have you been angry at me this whole time?" Harry asked.

"Fuck you," Louis said.

"What the _fuck_ , Louis?  I'm asking you an honest question!  Where is this all coming from?"

"Nowhere," Louis said, wrenching the door of his truck open, and getting in.  "I'm coming from fucking nowhere."

"Oh, _please_ ," he heard Harry say under his breath in the dark, dismissive, and he knew that was as far as he could go.  He started the ignition.

  
*  


He went to the beach before he went home.  The boardwalk was empty in the dark: the beaches were closed for the season, NO LIFEGUARD - NO SWIMMING signs posted 24/7 now, the shops rolled their shutters down early and turned off their glowing signs, Brinks was silent, a lone red bulb atop the ticket booth blinking out shadows.  He jogged across the planks, ducked under the chain across the ramp to the sand, jingling in the wind.  Nothing but the sound of the waves rushing unseen up to meet the shore.  He kicked his sneakers off and walked out toward the water.  

He couldn't see a horizon: just black sky and black water and black shore, no telling where one ended and the other began.  He stopped walking when he felt wet sand beneath his feet.  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he started to make out the foam of the waves fizzing sideways along the shore, dizzying, he stepped back to keep his balance.  Down the beach, as always, the lone flare of an orange cigarette.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.  Charlie: _where r u?  i want to play mariokart and mom n fee suck._

Soon it would just be them.  The last of the bennies, Harry included, would leave; like they did every year, after Labor Day, they would clear out and leave the beaches empty, the boardwalk quiet, and Louis would stand here on the dark shore and see what they never saw, what they never even thought about existing, the ocean in the winter, the sand blanketed with snow, the gray sky streaked with orange at sunset and the bite of freezing salt air as he inhaled.  

Louis pulled out his phone, read the message from his sister again, and texted back: _I'll be home soon_.

  
*  


The next couple nights, he drove by Harry's but didn't stop; he followed the curve of the white curbs that separated the lawns from the asphalt and held him in the street.  There were voicemails on his phone from Harry that he hadn't listened to, there were texts on his phone from Harry that he hadn't read.  He wanted so badly to be with him.

  
*  


It was a nice day, nice enough that they had all the windows open, breeze blowing crossways through the house, ruffling the fake flowers in glass soda bottles the girls had set out on the table, ruffling the uneven-torn end of the roll of paper towels by the sink.  Louis sat on the living room floor, playing ponies with the twins, in the rectangle of golden sunlight that slanted through the screen door.  Charlie was on the couch, finishing her summer reading, _The Things They Carried_ , idly plucking at the library plastic cover.

"You could go out, you know," she said.  "I'm gonna be here all night."

"I know," he said.  "I'm fine here."  He left his pony grazing near the coffee table and stood up, dropping his empty store-brand cola can in the recycling bin, going into the fridge for another.  "You guys want anything while I'm up?  I could make brown cows."

Harry's voice answered through the screen: "I'll take one."

The girls chorused "Hi!" as Louis looked at him over the refrigerator door.

"Can I come in?" Harry asked.

"Yes, duh," Charlie said, then looked back at Louis, who was focused intently on the inside of the fridge again.  "Whoa," she said.  "Trouble in paradise."

"Shut up, Charlie," Louis muttered, pulling two soda cans and the gallon jug of milk out.  

Harry opened the screen door gently and stepped inside, jamming his hands in his jean pockets.  "I like the flowers," he said, nodding at the soda-bottle arrangements at the center of the table.  "That's a nice touch."

"Thanks," Charlie said, then hung her head off the couch to look at the twins on the floor.  "Idiots, say thanks."

Louis ignored their squabbling, pulled four glasses out of the cabinet and concentrated on cracking two ice cubes out of the tray into each, pouring in the milk, popping open the soda cans and pouring that in too, milky bubbles fizzing right up to the rim.  He carried two in each hand to the living room, left three on the coffee table for the girls, turned around and handed the last to Harry.

"Oh," Harry said softly.

"You asked for one," Louis said.

He could practically feel Harry's heart breaking, which was good, which was what he intended, which he regretted faster than he had ever regretted anything in his life.  

"Can we talk?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Louis said.

Harry nodded and finished his drink, went into the kitchen and washed his glass, propped it in the dish drain sparkling.  He walked back out, all the way through the living room and out the screen door, and Louis followed him.

Outside, at the bottom of the front steps, he hugged Louis, arms all the way around Louis' body, face pressed hard against Louis' neck.

"Not here," Louis said.  "Not where little ears can hear."

So they went down to the boardwalk, under a cloudless sky, looked out at the waves crashing blue and white against the pale shore in the shade as they crossed the boards, then turned and leaned with their backs against the railing, staring at the shuttered sweet shops instead.  

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning," Harry said.  

"I know."

"I didn't want to leave it like this."

"Yeah, well, maybe we should," Louis said, pushing the toe of his sneaker through some of the sand that had gathered in the splintered hollows of the planks.  "Just...leave it like this."

"Is this what you were thinking the whole time?" Harry asked.  "Is this why you never wanted to talk about after I left?  Because you knew you were going to end it?"

"No," Louis said.  "I swear, I wasn't.  Niall even like, sat me down and tried to tell me how I couldn't keep acting like it wasn't gonna end, I couldn't put you on a pedestal and pretend there weren't gonna be any problems."

"Then why wouldn't--"

"I've been thinking, though."  He used the side of his sneaker to brush the sand into the gap between boards, watching it pour down toward the beach below.  "Maybe you were right, maybe I was a little mad at you this whole time.  I kept thinking the problem was this wasn't your real life, this was just a vacation for you.  But that's not fair.  It was a vacation for me too."

Harry frowned.  "What do you mean?"

"I don't _go_ grocery shopping at Beach Street," Louis said.  "I don't buy fancy cheeses and inherit a Mercedes from my sister.  I don't have a nice house just to spend the summer in, and I can't just quit my job and crash at my parents' and fuck around with drugs and everything will be okay.  But it was nice to pretend I did.  It was easy."

"So you're saying you were with me for my _house_?  So you could pretend you were rich?"

"No, of course not, I was with you for you," Louis said.  He rubbed his face.  "We're already using past tense.  I _was_ with you."

"I know you don't want me to mention semantics, but you really do focus a lot on--

" _Harry_."

"Fine," Harry said.  "So if you were with me for me, what's the problem?  So you got caught up in, whatever, cheeses, and things being easy.  So what?"

"Because if you were on vacation, and I was on vacation, then what was real?" Louis asked.

" _You_."  Harry took him by the shoulders.  "You were real.  You _are_ real.  I'm real.  You know vacation isn't, like, another universe, right?  It exists in the same realm of reality as everything else?"

"Yeah, except it doesn't," Louis said.  "People come here for the summer, and then they go, and then they don't come back."

"Is that what you're afraid of?" Harry asked.  "I won't come back?"

"No.  I know you'll come back," Louis said.  He still hadn't pulled out of Harry's grip.  There was a cool breeze off the ocean, and Harry's hands were warm against him. 

"So why won't you _let_ me?"

"Because it won't be the same.  It _won't_ be the same you, and it won't be the same _me_."

Harry finally let him go.  "Jesus Christ, Louis.  And people say I overthink things."

Louis rubbed at his own shoulders, where Harry's hands had been, and crossed his arms.  

"You know this is ridiculous, right?" Harry asked, ducking his head a little to look Louis in the eye.  "I mean, no offense, but you know this is dumb?  

"I know, but it's _not_."  He sighed.  He felt like he was going to cry if he breathed any more.  "This was really good, but it won't be the _same_ , if we keep going."

"Well, I'm not afraid of that."

"I _am_."

Harry looked away, brought his hand up to his mouth, pinched his bottom lip between his forefinger and his thumb. "Okay," he said finally.  "Okay."

Louis stared at him.  "So that's it?"

"What, you want me to put up more of a fight?"  Harry looked at Louis again, a little bit of a smile.  "Keep arguing till I convince you you're wrong?"

"Maybe," Louis said.  "A little."

Harry tipped his head back laughing.  "Sorry, Lou.  Like you said, I'm patient.  I'm not gonna force you to do anything you don't want to do."

"Oh no," Louis said, knitting his brows.  "I picked a guy who's wonderful.  That was my first mistake."

"So did I," Harry said, reaching for him again, pulling him close.  "That was your second mistake."

Louis laid his head against Harry's shoulder, letting Harry rub his back, letting Harry hold them against each other.  

"So what if," Harry said, slow, his hand down Louis' back slowing to match the pace of his words, "instead of we keep going, we start over?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just friends?" Harry asked.  "And we'll see what happens?  I can live without you being my boyfriend, but I can't live without you being my friend."

Louis turned his head to hide his face against Harry's chest, shivering, and squeezed his eyes shut, tears matting his eyelashes together.

"Are you crying again?" Harry whispered.

"Yes," Louis whispered back.  He didn't think he could speak any louder anyway.

"Shape up.  I can't date a guy who cries this much."

Louis laughed, sniffling.  "Good."  He pulled back, not enough to get out of Harry's grasp, but enough that his face wasn't hidden, and took a deep breath, and wiped his eyes.  Harry dipped his head to kiss him.  "Don't," he said.

Harry shook his head.  "I don't want to not remember the last time I kissed you."

Louis looked down.  "I don't want to remember the last time you kissed me as _this_."

Harry nodded, pulled him close and trailed kisses over the side of his face instead, his cheek, his temple, the edge of his ear, just the lightest brush before it was gone, and finally stopped at the top of Louis' head, chin tipped up, breathing into his hair.  

  
*  


Every morning for a month he woke up to a text from Harry:  _Hiiiiiiiii x.  Hello.  Howdy.  Hey there._   Until finally: _I'm running out of ways to say hello._   The next day Harry started in on other languages: _Hola!_   _Bonjour.  Ciao.  Konnichiwa!  Ni hao.  Привет!_ There wasn't a single language that Louis could use to text back.

  
*  


There were plenty of other things to do with his time.  Start looking for an apartment again, finally.  (His mom wrapped an arm around him every time she caught him looking through the classifieds, or at the bulletin board in the A&P, telling him he could stay a little longer if he wanted.  "I like having you where I can keep an eye on you," she said.  "I'm not gonna descend into a life of crime just because I'm on my own, Mom," he said, rolling his eyes.  "I managed for like five years before."  She rubbed his shoulder, and kissed him on the top of his head.  "I know," she said, "but that's not the only reason I like keeping an eye on you.")  Spend more time with Niall.  (They sat in the Wendy's parking lot on their lunch break, dipping fries in chocolate Frosties.  "You're a twat," Niall said, when Louis told him what had happened with Harry.  "But I love you."  They drove back to Niall's after work, and when they were done with dinner, Louis asked if he could crash on Niall's couch.  "You lonely?" Niall asked, and didn't mind when Louis didn't answer.  "Stay as long as you want," Niall said, "but you're washing your own hair this time.")  Help his sisters with their homework.  ("Did you even _take_ pre-calc?" Charlie asked, side-eyeing him as he dragged her textbook across the table and flipped through the first pages.  "No, but don't they say the best way to learn is to teach someone?" he asked.  She fixed him with a very steady stare, he was sure she was about to tell him to fuck off, but she scooted her chair over next to his so they were sitting hip-to-hip, and draped an arm across his back: "Okay, so we're starting with real numbers," she said.  "There are fake numbers?" he asked, and she turned her head to look at him again: "Louis, it's gonna be a very long year.")  Drive up to Newark to see Liam.  (They stretched out on Liam's neatly made bed and compared opinions on stuff in the news.  Obamacare: Louis was for, Liam against.  The fire in Seaside: Liam figured the firebreak was necessary, but he would have cried if he was one of the guys ripping up what they had just rebuilt, and Louis agreed.  Who they were going to vote for in the special election: both Booker, probably.  "You bored enough to tell me about Harry yet?" Liam asked, rolling onto his side and propping his head on one hand.  "Nope," Louis said, staring at the ceiling.  "There's nothing to tell."  But that night, as they passed each other in the dark hallway in their pajamas, Louis looped Liam into a hug, and Liam held him till he was ready to let go.)  Stare at a Grateful Dead bear stickered to a shop window for five minutes.  ("Can I help you?" the woman working there asked, ducking out the front door.  "Nope," he said.  "Just looking.")  There were plenty of things to keep him from taking out his phone, and checking for another message he would never answer.  (He set text notifications to no sound and no vibration, so he wouldn't even notice when another arrived.)

  
*  


He took the long way home from work one night, and then another, around the curve of Beach Street and past the house.  It was dark already, the sun had long since set, and the lawn and the empty driveway stretched dark-shadowed up to the white shingles of the house.  He stared at the black windows and searched for signs of a life he knew wasn't there, he pulled out his phone and let the screen light the cab of the truck as he scrolled through hello after hello.

  
*  


On a cloudy Sunday, waiting for him when he unburied his face from his pillow and turned over his phone to check the time: _Saluton_.

He smiled, like he did every morning, then tucked the phone away under his blankets, like he did every morning.  

Fee threw herself down on the mattress beside him with a bounce.  "Finally," she said.  "I wanna watch TV."

"Shall I prepare the frosted flakes, princess?"

"Yes, please.  And can you cut a banana in them?"

"God, you guys are spoiled," he said, getting up.

"Because you love us," she said, lifting the blankets to tuck herself into the warmth where his body had been, and his phone tumbled toward the edge of the mattress.  He picked it up and brought it with him into the kitchen, sat it on the counter next to him while he poured the cereal and sliced the banana and added in the milk.  "Can you make them soggy, too?" Fee called from the living room, so he turned and leaned with his back against the fridge, waiting for the frosted flakes to soak.  He picked his phone up and unlocked it, read _Saluton._ again and answered.

_I cant believe you've been doing this for a full month.  Pathetic._

The phone buzzed back less than a minute later: _Not pathetic, patient.  I'm Zen, remember?_

Louis wrote back, _That's not what zen means_ , then turned the phone off and stuck it in the junk drawer, and got to work drizzling a chocolate-syrup smiley face over Fee's frosted flakes.

  
*  


So it's late October, and he's still driving by the house, stopping at the curb like he always did.  There's the Halloween wind through the dark quiet streets, the slow spatter of rain starting against the windshield of the truck, but if he closes his eyes he can still see Harry on the sun-streaked lawn, summer-brown skin, pushing his Wayfarers up his nose.  

When he gets home his sisters will be draped around the living room, bright white lamplight, there'll be a plate his mom saved for him from dinner, covered in tinfoil to keep it warm, and she'll be in the kitchen, doing dishes, or in her bedroom, on the phone to her sister.  Fee will still be chattering about the flashlight vigil they went to on Tuesday, for the first anniversary of Sandy, her whole social studies class is writing an essay about it; Charlie will be chewing gum, rolling her eyes at Louis over the top of _Lord of the Flies_ or _Heart of Darkness_ , the two of them a team, slumped side-by-side on the couch, switching books at the end of every chapter.  The twins will be in their room, obsessed with the old VCR he hooked up in there last week, watching old episodes of _The Simpsons_ still lying around from when he taped them when he was a kid.

But for now he sits in the dark, in the quiet, in front of the house.  The phone buzzes on the passenger seat, the inside of the truck glows gray as the screen lights up with a text from Harry: _What is the sound of one hand clapping?_   It's been over a day since Louis last answered him.  Louis has a lot to tell him, but not a lot to say.

  
*  


He calls Harry on the first of November.  He's sitting on the edge of the boardwalk, staring out over the beach, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up against the cold night; in the dark air above him he can see the rising white clouds of his breath.

" _Hi_ ," Harry says when he answers.

"Hey," Louis says back.

"What's up?"

"I just wanted to say hey."

"Well, now you've said it twice."

"Ha ha."  Louis pulls his hands into his sleeves.  "So clever."

Harry is silent on the other end of the line.  Louis can hear him breathing, rhythmic as the crash of the waves.

"So," Louis says.

"So," Harry says back.  "I'm glad you called."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.  Duh yeah."

"I don't know!" Louis says.  "You could've called if you wanted."

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Harry asks.  "It took a _month_ to get you to reply to a text."

"True."  Louis sniffles in the cold air, and wipes his nose on his sleeve.

"Are you okay?" Harry asks.

"Yeah, why?"

"Oh.  You were sniffling, I thought you--"

"Oh.  No, it's just freezing out here, my nose is running."

"Where are you?"

"On the beach."

"I miss it," Harry says.

Louis looks down the deserted boardwalk, planks silvery pale under the streetlamps and the moonlight.  "It misses you."

"I thought it might."

"You're the biggest dick I ever met," Louis says, standing to head back to his truck.

"So you've said."

"Shut up."  

"You first."

Louis gets in the truck, starts the ignition, turns on the heat.  "So, really though, how come you didn't call?"

"I mean -- honestly, Louis, it did take you a month to reply to a text.  I didn't want to push it."

The heater needs a while to warm up, and when it finally starts working Louis puts the phone on speaker, sits it on the passenger seat, and holds both his hands out over the vent, letting the hot air flow through his fingers.  "I know, but like -- what was your plan?  I feel like you always have a plan.  Or not a plan, but like -- you can always tell where things are gonna go, and you just give them enough time to get there.  Like, in the beginning, you were trying to get me to see you liked me, or when I didn't want to have sex yet, you waited."

"I guess I was just waiting again," Harry says.  "I figured you would call when you were ready."

"What if I never called?"

"I don't know," Harry says.  "I don't have a plan, Louis.  I don't know what I'm doing, I'm just trying not to lose you.  And honestly?  I don't feel like I'm succeeding."

"No," Louis says.  

"I know I'm supposed to be all patient, and -- and I mean, I am, I don't mind waiting for things, but I didn't hear from you for a _month_ , and you still barely text back, and I don't know why.  I don't what's happening with you, I don't know if you're annoyed, or just sad, or if you're over it."

"I'm not _over_ it."

"Yeah, but you don't tell me.  I have to guess, and you don't give me a lot to go on."

Louis takes the phone off speaker.  He wants to hear Harry's voice close to him again.  "I just didn't know what to say," he says.  "I just miss you.  I just wish you were here."

"I wish _you_ were _here_."

He feels sleepy from the heat, and from Harry's voice in his ear.  "I have to go home and go to bed," he says, "but can I call you when I get there?  Can we talk until I fall asleep?"

"Yeah, of course," Harry says.  "Duh."

And so, at his mom's house, he pulls out the couch and makes up the mattress, with Harry on the other end of the line, he gets under the blankets and curls against the draft that always comes in from under the front door, he holds the phone close and falls asleep to Harry talking, words rising and falling like the sound of the waves, sounding like home.

  
*  


It takes less than five nights, lying in bed by the light of the orange streetlamp, house so much more silent without the air conditioner running anymore, without the sheets rustling around Harry's body next to him, he can hear the sounds of his sisters breathing softly asleep in their beds, and when his phone lights up with Harry calling to say goodnight, when the entire room blooms soft blue and shadow around him, framed family photos on the TV cabinet seeming to shift from where they were in the dark, the patterns in the patchwork quilt his mom's started setting out for him every night jumping together and then apart again, the plastic ponies he'll have to remember not to step on in the morning scattering themselves again across the floor, he reaches for it like a lifeline, even though he doesn't feel like he's drowning -- more like treading water, in the middle of a dark dark sea.  

It takes less than five nights for him to say, tucking his head under the blankets and holding the sound of Harry's voice close, "I hate this.  I shouldn't have said we shouldn't keep going."

Harry laughs on the other end of the line.

" _What?_ " Louis says, louder than he means to at this time of night, pushing the blankets down, sitting up and casting an offended look at the darkness around him.

Harry's still laughing in his ear.  "I was thinking, 'What if he never says it?  What if he's too stubborn?'"

"So you knew?"

"I didn't _know_ , but -- you seemed sad."

"Well, _thanks_."

"Well, you did!"

Louis smiles and gets down under the blankets again.  "I told you, you always know what's gonna happen.  That's why you're so good at waiting, you always know what'll come next."

"Well, not in general," Harry says.  

"No?"

"No, just with you.  Just sometimes."

"Oh, so I'm predictable," Louis says, but gentle, nodding his head against his pillow.

"I would _never_ call you predictable," Harry says.  "I just think you're more of a details person.  And I'm more big picture.  So sometimes you have to like, go through all the little things first."

" _Thanks_!"  

"No, I don't mean it offensive!  I like that about you.  You make me see all the little stuff I would have missed."

Louis tucks his legs, curling himself around the sound of Harry's voice, and sighs.  "I hate you."

"I hate you, too," Harry says.  "Anyway, it isn't like I know _exactly_ what you're going to do.  I almost don't care, it almost doesn't matter to me exactly where we end up, I just want to watch you get there.  That's all I'm doing, when I'm waiting.  Just watching you get to wherever we're going."

The headlights of a slow-passing car sweep over the ceiling, shadows shifting around the room.  Louis closes his eyes, breathes soft.  " _Harold_."

"What?"

"That was beautiful."

"What?"

"You _just want to watch me get there_?  I'm dying.  I can't breathe."

"Oh no," Harry says, "and I'm not there to give you mouth-to-mouth."

"You could be."

"Yeah, in about four hours."

"I can wait," Louis says.

"Wow, for a dying man, you're awfully patient."

"Zen, you might say."

" _You_ might."

They stay quiet for a while, Harry yawning out a breath on his end of the line.

In the dark, Louis raises his hand to trace the shadows in the kitchen.  "So," he says.

"So."

"So, what do you want to watch me get to next?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know you said you don't care where we end up," Louis says, "but if you could pick -- what's the next thing you want to happen?  Now that I've said we shouldn't be broken up?"

"I guess," Harry starts, then stops.

"You guess what?"

"I really want you to come up here.  To visit me.  I've been thinking about it, and you were right, in a way, about it being a vacation?  And like, you don't really know the _real_ me?  I mean, you do, but only some parts of it.  I want you to see where I live.  I want you to see where I grew up."

"Okay," Louis says.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay.  What, did you think I would say no?"

"No.  I don't know."

"Why would I say _no_?"

"Why do you do anything you do, you fucking weirdo?"

"Fair point," Louis says.  "So do you want to do it soon, or?"

"Yes, of course I want to do it soon," Harry says, "I want you to come here _right now_."

Louis smiles.  "I don't think I can do that, but I can probably do this weekend."

"This weekend, then."

"This weekend."

And after that he can't really stop himself from smiling, he's still sitting up in the dark but it feels brighter somehow, it's still a chilly November night but when he closes his eyes he sees sunshine.  They stay on the phone for a few hours more, until Louis laughs louder than he means to at something Harry said, and his mom comes shuffling out of her bedroom, and motions at him to keep it down.  "Sorry," he whispers, and when he tells Harry he should go Harry whines, and when he finally gets Harry to say goodbye Harry says he's sending a kiss through the phone, and when he finally gets Harry to hang up he says "This weekend," and before the line goes dead Harry says, "I love you."

  
*  


It isn't a difficult trip: in the morning he takes one train to New York, and another to New Haven, light-faded fields and red autumn-stripped trees flashing by in the windows, backs of warehouses, graffiti-colored, and apartment buildings, laundry lines with sheets flapping in the fall wind, he closes his eyes against the sun flickering in and out from behind branches and leans his head back and almost sleeps.  At Union Station he buys himself some time, wandering around a newsstand, picking up and paying for a plastic bottle of apple juice, exact change, and it helps him feel less nervous.  Outside, across the street from the taxi stand, Harry is waiting for him, leaning against the silver Mercedes, hip cocked, and when Louis sees him he feels something pushing against the inside of his chest, rolling him forward like riding a wave back to shore, and he sprints across the road and throws himself into Harry's arms.  

He doesn't remember how to breathe.  He doesn't remember how to not cry.  He's missed so many things about Harry: the warm cinnamon smell of him, how solid his body feels, the goofy faces he makes when he's happy, and to cheer Louis up, lopsided grin, tongue out, wiggling his head from side to side, while Louis wipes his eyes.  "You okay?" Harry asks, throwing Louis' bags into the backseat, and Louis says yes.  "Good," Harry says, and then it's Harry's turn: arms around Louis' waist, face buried in the crook of Louis' neck, breathing hard and uneven.  "Missed you," Harry whispers.

They drive out of the city, through the suburbs and along curving roads he doesn't recognize, lined with trees holding on to the last of their leaves: red, gold, green turning to brown, against a crisp sunny sky.  Long blue gravel driveways weaving back into the foliage.  Hand-painted signs advertising hot cider and pumpkin-picking.  Brief flashes of white picket fence, the bright white spire of an old church slicing up against the cloudless blue.  Harry's face dappled by shade and sun, one hand up at his mouth as he drives, idly chewing his index finger, idly stroking his bottom lip with his fingertips, Harry's smile when he catches Louis looking at him.

  
*  


The first place they go is Harry's blue-painted bedroom: framed album covers on the walls, a reproduction of a Woodstock poster, a cardboard box full of toys tucked in the bottom of the open closet.  Track trophies and a half-melted cinnamon candle on top of the dresser, framed snapshots of old friends still thumbtacked to the bulletin board over the desk, strings of beads thrown over the corner of the mirror, piles of paperbacks along the wall under the window and concert tickets along the windowframe and a stack of CDs in the corner.  There's a faded American flag tacked loose to the wall above the bed, and a string of Christmas lights wound around the headboard.  

"This is cute," Louis says, flopping down on the blue-and-white striped bedspread, taking fistfuls of it, pulling it into a cocoon around him.  

"Stop," Harry says, leaning over him, smoothing the blankets back down.  "You're unmaking it!"

"Since when do you care about making your bed?"

"Since my mom yells at me about it every morning."

"Aw, _Harry_."  Louis lets go of the bedspread, wraps his arms around Harry and pulls Harry's weight down on top of him.  

Harry flails gently, then settles himself down on top of Louis.  "So, what do you want to do today?" he asks.

"This is pretty nice."

"Yeah, but I can lay on you anywhere.  This is your first time in Connecticut!  Don't you want to explore?"

"I do, I do," Louis says, working his hands in under Harry's coat and shirt, tucking his fingers down into the back pockets of Harry's jeans.  "I just want to relax for a minute.  That was a really long trip."

"Yeah, the train always seems like a great idea, and then I remember it takes fucking forever."

"I might just drive it next time.  I had to wait like two hours in Grand Central."

"Ugh."

"I mean, it wasn't so bad.  It's pretty.  I walked around a lot."

Harry's been talking into the side of Louis' neck this whole time, but now he lifts his head.  Their faces are close; Louis can barely focus on him.  "I wish I was there with you," Harry says.  "Maybe next time we can meet in the city."

"Next time," Louis says.  "We keep saying next time."

"You know how you always think I have a plan?" Harry says.  "Well here's my big plan: there's always gonna be a next time."

Louis smiles, pulls his hands out of Harry's pockets and cups them on either side of Harry's face instead, and kisses him.

"What?" Harry asks.  "It's true."

"I know it is."  Louis kisses Harry on the cheek this time, on the underside of his chin, wriggles a little trying to get in the right position to kiss his throat, and Harry lifts his head obligingly, so Louis can touch his lips to Harry's warm skin.  "Do you ever wonder how this is possible?" Louis asks, brushing his bottom lip and the tip of his nose soft against the skin of Harry's neck.  "I mean, I've only known you since June, but everything already feels really definite.  I _definitely_ want to be with you.  I _definitely_ want to do this."

Harry rolls off of him, stretches out against his side.  "I was talking to my mom, you know, like, when you weren't even texting, I just kept saying, 'I know it's stupid to keep trying, but I just feel like--'"  He stops, looking at Louis with those clear green eyes, and Louis feels bad, because he seems -- hurt, almost.  Cautious.  Like he's scared of screwing this up again, when he was never the one who screwed it up in the first place.

"No," Louis says, nodding, "you can say it."

"I just feel like this is a forever thing," Harry says.  "And how can I _know_ , you know?  How can I actually really know that, when we've only known each other a few months?  I used to look at people who got engaged after a year and be like, 'What, are you _crazy_?'  I used to think like, I'd need three years, at _least_."

"Are you saying we're engaged?"

"No, but--"

"I know."

"And anyway, I would be sitting there saying this to my mom, and she was like, 'It isn't magic, Harry.  You love a person enough, you make the effort.  Without even thinking about it.'"

Louis pulls the bedspread up around him.  "Wow, your mom's all smart and shit."

"I told you, you just got off on the wrong foot."  Harry reaches out, touches the tip of his index finger to Louis' nose, then to Louis' cheek, then trails it down the line of Louis' jaw.

"As nice as this is," Louis says, "can we talk about something other than us?  I feel like we've been talking about nothing but us lately.  How about, why didn't you ever tell me you live on a farm?"

"It's not a farm.  It's just…big."

"It's just…big," Louis imitates.  

Harry tries to duck in under the side of the bedspread Louis has wrapped around him, then pulls up the other side instead, making his own cocoon.  

"Your mom's gonna ground you," Louis says.

"Shut up," Harry says.  "Why did I even bring you here?  Go home."

"You brought me here because you _love_ me.  You brought me here because you want to be with me for _ev_ er."

"I never said that, shut up, you're making up lies."

Louis laughs, lets go of his side of the bedspread and tries to dig his way into Harry's cocoon.  "You said it.  I heard it."

"All right," Harry says, sitting up, grabbing the blankets around Louis and hauling Louis up with him.  "You're totally not tired, you liar, let's go for a walk."

"Around your farm?"

"It's not a farm.  There's like an acre in one corner that this guy rents to grow Christmas trees, and that's it."

"Oh my _God_!  Why do you have more than one acre?"

Harry climbs off the bed, crawling over Louis.  "Come on."

"Help me up, Farmer Harry.  I'm fatigued from my long, long journey.  Throw me over your shoulder and show me your homestead."

"Oh, you want me to?" Harry asks, grinning, leaning over Louis and grabbing him by the waist.

"Oh, Jesus," Louis says as Harry straightens up, and lets himself go limp as Harry lifts him, lets his waist bend over Harry's shoulder and the top half off his body rest on Harry's back, one hand bracing against the side of Harry's hip.  "You're going to kill us."

"I can do this," Harry grunts.  He's still half bent over, knees crooked, wrapping his arm tighter around Louis' legs as Louis squirms.

"You can't even walk straight when you're just you!" Louis shouts.

"Stop kicking!"

"I don't want to die!"  

He kicks enough that Harry loses his grip, and as he starts to slide down Harry's back, headfirst to the floor, Harry tips himself forward, collapsing on folded legs like a fawn, so Louis falls on top of him instead.  Someone knocks into the nightstand, several books and a souvenir wire statue of the Empire State Building toppling to the floor, and someone kicks into the dresser, one of the track trophies rocking on the edge till it comes crashing down.  Harry rolls over beneath Louis to get a good look at the damage.  They're literally tangled together, Louis lying on Harry's hip, one hand clutching Harry's shirt, one hand resting against the warm inside of Harry's thigh, Harry's arm threaded through Louis' legs and another around Louis' waist.

Harry's mother appears in the doorway: "Hello, boys."

Harry props himself on one elbow to look at her, frees his arm from Louis' legs to wave big, an exaggerated wide grin with his chin tucked into his neck.  "Hi, Mom!"

"You're so quiet, I didn't even know you were here," she says.

Harry lets his arm flop back down to the floor.  "I know!  You raised me so well-behaved!"

"I should have left you to the wolves," she says, shaking her head.  "It's nice to see you again, Louis."

Louis nods, as composed as he can with Harry giggling beneath him.  "Nice to see you too."

She heads down the hall, and Harry sits up, smacking Louis on the butt of his jeans.  "Come on," he says.  "Let's show you Connecticut."

Louis rolls off of him, lies flat on his back on the floor.  "Kiss me first," he says softly.

"Kiss you first, kiss you last, kiss you whenever," Harry says, running his hand down to Louis' hip and bending over him till their faces are together, till he's saying the words right up against Louis' lips, till Louis arcs the extra millimeter it takes to bring their mouths together, and opens up to let Harry in.

  
*  


Harry gives him the tour.  There's the big red-brick colonial, and the grass immediately around it is neatly trimmed, sloping down autumn-green to the stand of trees that block the house from the street, the hedges that line the long blue-gravel driveway are neat enough, and around back there's another mowed lawn, a flagstone patio, an in-ground pool with the cover stretched over it for winter, but beyond the low stacked-stone wall it's wild: overgrown grasses, the blond stalks folded down on each other, bramble bushes, branches Harry tells him bear blueberries in the summer, and Louis imagines Harry's hands and tongue stained purple from the juice.  Harry steps up onto the wall and over, and holds Louis' hand when Louis follows, and keeps holding it as they trample the grasses down flatter, trudging across the field toward the line of trees, late-fall foliage, red and dark green and yellow through the bare branches.  The sun is already starting to go down, and everything is bathed in blue shadow.  

"I love a good field," Harry says, swinging Louis' hand in his.

" _God_ , you're in a good mood," Louis says.

"Aren't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm not as disgusting about it."

In the woods the ground is carpeted with damp yellow leaves, when Louis scuffs them aside with his sneaker he leaves slashes of rich dirt, there are patches of moss that wind like fairytale paths across the forest floor, and chunks of rock sticking up through the dark soil: it reminds him of Harry, solid, substantial.  He picks up a gray stone and squeezes his hand around it, and then tucks it in his pocket, and brushes the damp dirt off his hands, and doesn't mind the soft dark streaks it leaves across his palm.

"You picking up souvenirs?" Harry asks, watching from a few feet ahead.

"Yup."

"I spy something you can take home with you," Harry says, looking down at his own self.  

"Don't make me throw my souvenir at you," Louis says, and follows as Harry charges ahead, grin like a beacon through the shadowy woods.

About a mile and a half from the house, there are PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO HUNTING signs posted on the trees, and a creek cutting a little valley through the ground, steep dirt banks winding with vines, bare this late in the fall, and the water is clear enough that Louis can see the rocks at the bottom, covered with rust-colored sediment.  The forest here smells sweeter, wetter, but not like the beach -- there's no salt in the air, just the heavy smell of the earth.

"Sometimes you can find fossils in there," Harry says, looking down into the creek.  "I found a shark tooth once."

Louis wanders over to Harry, tucks his hands in Harry's front pockets, bows his head against Harry's shoulder.

"You want to turn back?" Harry asks.  "It's getting cold."

"I don't know," Louis says.  "I like it here."

"Here as in here, or here as in my pockets?"

"Both."

"Good," Harry says.  "I love it here.  I used to come out here all the time when I was a kid.  I wouldn't even do anything, I would just, like, wander and think about stuff."

"You, thinking about stuff?  What a shocker."

"I know," Harry says.  "And it's funny, when we first moved, my mom and my sister were _so_ excited about getting out of the city, and then we got here and they were like, 'It's too quiet!  It's too green!'  And I totally didn't want to come here, and when I got here I was like, 'This is perfect.'  I came out here for the first time, and I felt like -- you're going to make fun of me for being a hippie, but I felt like I was one with everything.  With like, the trees, and the dirt, and the grass."

"You're right, I am going to make fun of you for being a hippie," Louis says.

"But have you ever felt that way?" Harry asks.  "Like some part of the world was a part of you?  Or like you were a part of it?"

Louis thinks about the ocean, about riding the waves in the summertime and how sometimes he can't tell where the water ends and his body begins, about standing on the edge of the beach in the winter in the dark, and he can't see the water but he knows it's there in front of him.  "Yeah," Louis says.  "I feel that way about the ocean."

"Hippie," Harry says.

"You know what's funny?" Louis asks.  "Why I took that rock?"

"What?"

"It reminded me of you."

Harry makes a mock-insulted face, flares his nostrils and grimaces and turns his head.  "I remind you of a _rock_?"

"Solid," Louis says.

Harry quits with the face, and plants a kiss on Louis' forehead.  "You're like a rock too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, fucking immovable."

Louis shrugs, feigning disappointment.  "I thought you were gonna say hard."

"Hmm, lemme check," Harry says, sliding his hands down Louis' front, pushing his fingers in under the waistband of Louis' jeans.

"Careful, or I actually will be."

"Keep it down till nine.  My parents are going to a movie so we can have the house."

"Ew.  Ew your mom is thinking about us having sex."

"Do you want to do it or not?" Harry asks, wiggling his fingers against Louis' stomach.

"I do," Louis says.  "I very much do."

"Then just be grateful my mom knows she raised a perv."

Louis pushes his right hand further into Harry's pocket, down toward the crotch of his jeans, trying to see if he can brush his fingertips against Harry's dick through the cloth.  "I wouldn't say you're a perv.  I've been with way pervier."

" _You're_ a perv, I know what you're doing," Harry says, looking down.  "And I don't want to hear about who else you've been with."

Louis smiles and pulls his hand out of Harry's pocket, and settles for pressing the sides of his fingers into the line of Harry's hip, which always -- there it is, Harry closes his eyes and tips his head back slightly, letting out a breath.  Louis kisses his throat: "Don't worry about it.  I'm with you now."

"That's true," Harry says, eyes still closed.  He takes a deep breath.  "Okay, we should definitely start walking back."

"Are you sure?"  Louis kisses Harry's throat again, and moves on to the side of his neck, looking for a soft place to suck, tracing his path with his tongue, leaving Harry's skin a little wet in the cold air as he moves on, he can feel Harry getting goosebumps.  "All the time you lived out here, you never brought anyone out to the woods to fool around?"

"Of course I did," Harry says, sounding a little strangled.  "My first kiss was right around here."

"Oh yeah?"  Louis dips his head to touch his open mouth to the juncture of Harry's neck and shoulder, and sucks.

"Mm.  It was up against one of those trees over there.  Very steamy."

Louis eases up, licks against the little red mark he's made -- he didn't do enough to break the blood vessels, but the skin is still flushed.  "Up against a _tree_?  Your mom really did raise a perv."

"I told you," Harry says, and he takes his chance to turn his head quick, dip it slightly and catch a kiss on Louis' mouth, sucking on Louis' bottom lip so Louis will open up.  Louis keeps working his fingers against Harry's hip, and when he slides his fingertips down toward the fly of his jeans he _can_ feel Harry's dick now, starting to get hard.  Harry sighs into his mouth at the brush of his hand through the denim, and returns the favor, pulling his hands out of Louis' waistband and palming him through his jeans.

"Why don't we find that tree?" Louis asks when he pulls away.  "See if I can compete with your first love?"

Harry whines.  "Why don't we find literally any surface I can lay you down on, and you already win?"

"Ooh, romantic."

"You couldn't just keep it in your pants till nine?"

"Hey, it's still _in_ my pants."

"Barely," Harry says, glancing down.

"You're one to talk," Louis says.  "Those jeans can barely contain you to begin with."

"All right, let's walk it off," Harry says.

"We should put new signs up," Louis says, following behind him.  "Boner trail."

"Yeah, the local parents'll appreciate that one."

"Trail of tears."

"That one's actually offensive."

"Oof, that's true," Louis says, wincing.  "My apologies, Native Americans."

Harry falls back a few steps so Louis can catch up with him, drapes an arm around Louis' shoulders.  "Have you ever considered thinking before you speak?"

"Occasionally."

Harry wraps his other arm around the front of Louis' chest, ducks his head to lay it on Louis' shoulder, stumbles sideways hugging him while Louis walks.  "What would you do without me, Louis?"

"Besides be really insensitive about the generations of people we brutally murdered for this very land?"

"Besides that."

"Besides probably be lost in the woods, also, because I have no idea where I'm going?"

"Besides that.  Hang a left at that oak with the red leaves."  Harry tugs on him gently as they near the tree, guiding Louis in the right direction.

"Besides be really, really sad?"

"Besides that."

"There is no besides that," Louis says, after a moment, Harry still holding him.  "I would just be really, really sad."  

Harry stops, so Louis has to stop too, contained within his arms and standing still as Harry nuzzles his neck.

"I love you," Harry says, breath hot against Louis' skin.

"Actually, there is one thing besides that," Louis says.

Harry looks up at him, eyes big and more grayish than green in the shadows, waiting to hear.

"I wouldn't have this inconvenient boner without you."

Without saying anything, without breaking eye contact, Harry begins sliding his hand down from Louis' shoulder, down his chest, down his stomach.

"Don't you dare," Louis says.  

Harry smiles, biting his lip.

"Keep it in my pants till nine."

"I don't need to take it out of your pants to--"

" _Don't_!  Jesus, it was _just_ getting better!"

Harry laughs, pulling his hand away from Louis, standing up straight.  "That's what you get for not saying you love me too."

"Oh, like I have to fucking say it."

"Nope, you don't," Harry says, putting a hand on Louis' back instead, pushing him forward through the trees.  "I already know."

  
*  


They go to dinner when the sun finally sets, orange light on a peak-roofed gray-clapboard tavern on the main road through town, built in 1765: Louis reads the plaque on the wall while they wait for a table, Harry behind him, Harry's hands around his waist, Harry's chin on his shoulder.  "It's a landmark," Harry says.  "When they made the road wider, they put the whole building on wheels and moved it back like five hundred feet.  We did a project on it in school.  It was an inn during the Revolutionary War, and the Americans stayed here and planned a bunch of battles."  The tables are dark wood with yellow reflections of candlelight, and Louis sits across from Harry for the first half of dinner, then next to him for dessert.  Outside, after, chewing on starlight mints, they hold hands and the cold air smells tangy like smoke.  "Someone's got their chimney going," Harry says.  There's a low wood building set on the edge of an orchard, long wall of red-painted planks between two doors, a sign that says STORE over one and CAFE over the other: Harry parks in the lot on the cafe side and leads Louis inside, they sit on the ledge of a gray stone fireplace with sugar-cinnamon doughnuts, hot apple cider for Harry and a cup of tea for Louis, the glow of the fire dances across Harry's face, and Louis' cheeks feel flushed from the heat.  

Back in Harry's bedroom, they curl face-to-face on the bed, kiss with warm mouths and run their hands down each other's sides.  There's a scarf over the bedside lamp, the light on their skin is red and it turns the color of the walls purple.  Louis can still smell the tang of smoke in the cold night air, can still taste sweet cinnamon, can feel the soft rustle of yellow leaves against his back as sure as if Harry has him lying on the forest floor.  "So this is where you grew up," he says, and Harry says, "Yeah."  "Do you like it?" Harry asks, and Louis answers, "I do."  They undress each other layer by layer: jackets, sweaters, hoodies, t-shirts, jeans and socks.  They touch each other's swollen lips and breathe hard against each other's bare skin; before he does anything else, Harry runs his fingertips soft and idle down the length of Louis' cock, and Louis arches up against him, holding on to Harry hard, digging his fingers into Harry's back, a cry coming out of his throat before he even realizes he's the one making a sound.  Harry swallows him down, lets him hit the back of his throat, pulls off and runs his thumb down the underside of his spit-wet cock, till Louis pushes him down on the bed and returns the favor, and when Louis takes a second to look up, Harry reaches for him with an unsteady hand, traces his tingling slick lips, slips a finger into his open mouth.  Harry smiles.  Harry asks, as always, _asks_ , for Louis to fuck him.  "Unless you want to go first," Harry says, and Louis shakes his head.  "I think you like it more than me," he says, kissing Harry's forehead, "I want you to have what you want."  Even though there isn't a lot of time left, Louis takes it slow, opens Harry up slow, pushes into him slow, pulls out of him slow, till Harry is moaning desperate beneath him, _please please please_ , and and Louis strokes the hair back from Harry's forehead, Louis cups his other hand around Harry's cock, Louis folds himself down against Harry's body and listens to Harry whimpering in his ear: _yes, fuck, Louis, yes_.  "Harry," he says, his lips brushing Harry's jaw, and Harry's arms are around him when he comes, and when he's aware of the world again they're both smiling.  Louis cleans them both up, and gets the extra blanket out of the closet, and tucks them both in, and falls asleep to Harry telling knock-knock jokes in the dark.  

On Sunday morning, Harry makes him banana pancakes and scrambled eggs and tempeh bacon, a white stripe of flour across his cheek.  They take another walk in the woods, sit in a tree and watch the white-tailed deer, they hold hands across the bare branches.  Harry shows him where the family of groundhogs lives, dug-out dirt under a shed wound with leafless vines, paint peeling, a pile of old flagstone off to one side; Harry gets down on his stomach on the ground to see if he can see them, and Louis gets down next to him, his cheek against the cool grass.  They turn over the flagstones and watch the roly-polies and worms, they stroke one of woolly black-and-orange caterpillars they find hiding in the grass.  Harry knows the names of everything: "Did you know the family for pillbugs is _Armadillidiidae_?" he asks as Louis pokes a roly-poly to make it curl into a ball.  "Those are called woolly bears," he says while Louis crouches still enough so the caterpillar will crawl over the back of his hand.  "People used to think woolly bears could predict the weather.  If there was more black on them, it meant a bad winter was coming, and if there was more orange on them, it meant a mild winter," he explains when Louis stands, holding the confused caterpillar out toward him.  "You're like a walking Wikipedia," Louis says.  They go back home and look at baby pictures, they stand in the kitchen heating popcorn kernels and olive oil on the stove, they burn their fingers when they try to eat it right out of the pot, and then they do it again.  It's sunset by the time they can bring themselves to drive back to New Haven, it's dark when they stand across the street from Union Station again.  "You want me to walk with you to the platform?" Harry asks.  "No," Louis says.  "I think that would just be worse."  So they kiss right there on the curb, next to the Mercedes, which has an IMAGINE WHIRLED PEAS sticker from Louis on it now too, beside the Grateful Dead logo.  Harry curves his hand against the back of Louis' head when they kiss, but when it's time he lets Louis go, and when Louis looks back over his shoulder, he sees Harry still standing on the sidewalk, staying back because Louis asked him to.  

On the train, as the sign flashes the all aboard, Louis looks out the window: there's Harry on the platform, walking slowly along the length of the train.  He pulls out his phone and dials Harry's number: "Fuck you, I said it would be worse."  He sees Harry smile through the glass, he hears Harry's voice in his ear: "You lied.  You can see me?  I can't tell which window is yours."  And as the train pulls away, Harry stands waving, he hasn't found Louis' face in the window but he waves anyway, "I can see you," Louis says into the phone, as Harry raises his arm, "I can totally still see you."

  
*  


They’re together three more times between then and Thanksgiving.  Another weekend in Connecticut, grilling steaks and an eggplant parmigiana for Harry on the back patio in the dark, the smell of basil and cold air, they hold their hands over the yellow fire and hop up and down to keep warm, the stars shine sharp pinpoints in the sky.  And again in the city, they kiss at the top of the Empire State Building, like in _Sleepless in Seattle_ , all day Harry begs him, "Make my childhood dreams come true," and all day Louis says no, "It's _so stupid_ ," so when they're standing on the corner of 34th, and Louis hands him two tickets to the top, Harry throws his head back laughing so loud it startles several pigeons away.  A few days in the middle of the week in New Jersey, but the girls attach themselves to Harry as soon as he appears at the front door, and between that and work Louis can barely get a minute alone with him.  

Thanksgiving morning Louis wakes up to the twins prancing back and forth in front of the television; he leaves the bed pulled out and the blankets piled on top and watches the Macy's parade with his mom and his sisters cuddled up all around him, passing a carton of orange juice between them -- no breakfast on Thanksgiving, that's the Tomlinson tradition -- and he calls Harry in the middle of it, and they say the names of the balloons and marching bands as they appear on the screen, because it's nice to know they're seeing the same thing.  

"Wish you were here," Louis says before Harry hangs up, and Charlie sticks her finger down her throat, pretending to puke.

"Same," Harry says.  "Enjoy your bird carcass!"

"Go fuck yourself!" Louis says back, and Charlie nods, mouthing _That's more like it_.

After the parade, they scatter, his mom to the kitchen, his sisters to their rooms to finish their homework.  Louis folds the bed back up, puts the blankets away, takes a shower and shaves and joins his mom in the kitchen, helping her mix up the green bean casserole, dotting the top of the sweet potatoes with tiny marshmallows.  It gets too warm with the oven on and the potatoes boiling on top of the stove, steam clouds curling around the light fixture, silvering the windows with condensation, and Louis shoves open the window above the sink, leaning over the counter edge to feel the cold wind on his face.  Niall shows up with a chocolate pudding pie under one arm, and a fifty-year-old potato masher he's always claimed is a family heirloom in his pocket.  "You guys almost ready?"

"Potatoes are all yours," Louis' mom says, setting a colander in the sink.

"Thank you, Jo," Niall says, opening the fridge and sticking the pie inside.  "Can you show me where the butter is?"

Louis ducks away from the window to show him, pulling out the milk and the garlic too, flattening himself against the refrigerator so his mom can slip through the doorway.  He hears her down the hall, nagging the girls to get dressed, and he hands the milk to Niall: "Where are your folks?"

"My parents are meeting us at Liam's," Niall says, draining the potatoes into the colander, dumping them still steaming into a mixing bowl.  "And the brothers are all with their wives this year."

"But you," Louis says, "you remain a gift to the single women of Ocean County."

"You got it," Niall says.  

Louis pulls the potato masher out of his pocket and gives it a quick scrub with a soapy sponge.  "And, just that once, the single men."

"Remember, that's between you and me."

"And the dude you sucked off," Louis says, rinsing the masher, and wrapping it up in a dry dish towel.

"I was good at it, too," Niall says, raising his eyebrows, holding his hand out.

Louis hands him the masher.  "I honestly believe you were."

Jo leans into the kitchen, half zipped into her dress.  "If you filthy sluts are finished with this conversation, Louis, you need to get dressed too."

"Jesus, Mom, do you have to hear everything?"  Louis tugs her into the kitchen, fastens the hook-and-eye and zips the zipper the rest of the way up.

"Yes, it's my job," she says.  "And thank you.  Now go get dressed."

"Maybe thank me by not eavesdropping," Louis says, heading for his closet.

The twins hop into the living room, wearing one pair of tights between them, and one of Charlie's bras -- padded, cartoon cherry-print, Louis remembers rolling his eyes at it the last time he folded the laundry -- on their heads as Charlie chases them screeching down the hall.  Fee stands in the doorway of the bathroom, wearing the most over-it-all expression Louis has ever seen, watching as their mother catches the twins in both hands and slides them on their stockinged feet back down the hall.

" _Mother_ , they are _monsters_!" Charlie shouts, plucking the bra off the twins' heads.  "We have _company_!  What if _Niall_ had seen that?"

"No judgment, Charlie," Niall calls from the kitchen.  "Plenty of lovely people wear bras."

"Charlie!" Fee squeals from the bathroom, literally pointing and laughing.  "He _totally_ saw!"

Charlie leaps across the hall, hands against the bathroom door before Fee can slam it all the way shut, shouting threats and trying to shove her way in; behind her, his mother is ignoring them, trying to untangle the twins from their tights; Niall pokes his head out of the kitchen and shrugs at Louis; and it all stops dead when the doorbell rings.

" _Now_ who's here?" Fee whines from behind the bathroom door.

"I hope it's fucking _Satan_ to drag you down to _hell_ ," Charlie hisses.

"Watch your language," Louis says, opening the front door, and there's Harry standing on the steps, holding a bouquet of chrysanthemums in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other.  

"Happy Thanksgiving," Harry says softly through the screen.

Louis stares at him.  "Holy shit."

"Watch _your_ language," Charlie says, stepping into the living room, and then: " _Harry!_ " she shouts, showing up at Louis' side and pushing the screen door open.  

"How?" Louis asks as Harry pulls him into a hug, he fists one hand in Harry's hair and presses his lips to Harry's temple.

"I started driving down this morning," Harry says.  "I was watching the parade in a diner on Route 18.  Surprise!"

"What about your family?"  Louis knows his sisters are all gathered behind him, waiting to get their arms around Harry too, but Louis holds onto him.

"In the city at my aunt's," Harry says, then, softer, dipping his head to say it into Louis' ear, "You know how I feel about being around all of them."  

Louis nods, his cheek against Harry's.  "So you just ditched?"

"I got special dispensation from my mom to skip out on them this year, and then I just had to keep it a secret."

"I can't believe you pulled it off," Louis says.

"It wasn't _that_ brilliant a plan.  Halfway here I was like, oh my god, what if they're not home, what if they go to someone else's?  I forgot to ask what you were doing."

Louis loosens his grip on Harry a little, and looks back at his mom.  "Well, we sort of do go to someone else's."

"Oh," Harry says as the girls squeeze in, hugging him with their faces squished against his sweater.  

"It'll be fine," Jo says quickly.  "It's only Liam's family, they'll make room."

" _Only_ Liam's family?" Harry asks, raising his eyebrows.  "I'm going to tell them you said that."

"Hush, you," she says, prying the twins off of him and directing them back down the hall.  "You're as bad as Louis."

"Two peas in a pod," Harry says.  "Two bad bananas in a bunch."  He drapes an arm over Louis' shoulder, brushing chrysanthemum petals against the side of Louis' face, and walks him through the living room.  "Hey, Niall!"

"Oh, speaking of Niall and bananas--" Louis begins.

"How dare you," Niall says, brandishing the masher.

Harry looks back and forth between them, eyes bright.  "What?  What?"

"Get him drunk enough at dinner and he'll probably tell you," Louis whispers into Harry's ear, but loud enough for Niall to hear.

"Don't forget how many of your secrets I know," Niall says, retreating into the kitchen.  "I could destroy you."

"Lies," Louis says to Harry.  "All lies.  Want to help me get dressed?" 

"Um, yeah," Harry says, brushing the flowers against Louis' face again.  He lets Louis lead him down the hall, when he bumps into Jo he offers her the bouquet, saying "By the way, these are for you," when he's asked he picks black jeans and a rust-colored sweater and a pair of white Vans for Louis to wear, saying "I like you in snuggly sweaters."

"You don't like me the rest of the time?" Louis asks, pouting.

"Not really."

"Ooh, burn."  Louis settles on the bed next to Harry, bending down to cuff the ends of his jeans.  "Thanks for coming, by the way."

"No problem.  I mean, I didn't just do it out of the goodness of my heart.  I wanted to see you."

Louis reaches out and runs his fingers through Harry's hair, combing it away from his forehead and over on the side, the way he wore it in the summer, and Harry grins.  "I know," Louis says.  

Harry ruffles Louis' hair in return, then leans a little closer and smooths it so it's lying over Louis' forehead, the way Louis likes.

"Oh, now I feel bad," Louis says.

"Why?"

"I did your hair the way I like it, and then you did _my_ hair the way I like it."

"The way you like it _is_ the way I like it."

"Wow," Louis says.  "Careful."

"What?"

"Sometimes you're _too_ easy."

Harry leans back across the bed, eyelashes fluttering, filthy crooked smile.  "That's never bothered you before."

"I see what you did there," Louis says.  "You took a thing I said, and then you made it dirty."

"Again," Harry smiles, "that's never bothered you before."

Down the hall, in the living room, the girls are yelling for them to hurry up, they're all dressed and in their good coats, they're all cradling warm dishes in their arms: Charlie with the green bean casserole, Fee with the sweet potatoes, the twins with a basket of recently baked biscuits between them.  Louis grabs Harry by the hand, pulls him up off the bed and ballroom dances him down the hall, Louis goes back into the kitchen to close the window before they leave, Louis grabs the two smallest plastic ponies off the table and sticks them peeking out of the twins' pockets as they get in the car.  The sky is gray threaded through with blue, like the ocean in winter, like the last sunset he watched in Connecticut with Harry.

  
*  


"Wait, did you _really_?" Harry says, raising his eyebrows.

They're sitting on the picnic table behind Liam's parents' place after Thanksgiving dinner, the four of them -- Liam, Harry, Louis, and Niall -- shoulder-to-shoulder staring across the dark backyard at the neighbors' houses through the bare trees.  They're a little drunk, to be honest, sleepy from the food and from the six-packs of Sam Adams they brought out to the backyard with them.  Niall is finally telling the story of the time he sucked a cock.

"And that was it?" Harry asks.  "Like, you just finished and thought, never again?"

"I mean, I didn't _hate_ it," Niall says.  "It just didn't do anything for me."

Harry shakes his head.  "Weird."

"How is that weird?" Liam asks, laughing.

"I mean if you were into him enough to blow him," Harry starts.

"Harry here thinks people are people," Louis says, patting Harry's thigh.  "Love is love."

Even in the dim light from the lamp over the back door, Louis can see Liam roll his eyes, but Niall leans across Louis' lap, holding his fist out to Harry for a bump: "Nah, I get that, man.  Love _is_ love.  But like, for some people, boobs are boobs."

Harry touches his fist to Niall's.  "I guess I can't argue with you there."

"I don't understand the boob thing," Louis says.

"They're just _nice_ ," Liam says, and on the other side of Louis there's Harry looking thoughtful, cupping both hands, making a little squeezing motion.

Niall leans forward laughing.  "Only you would describe a boob as _nice_ , dude."

"They _are_ nice!"

Louis leaves his empty on the bench by his feet, turns and crawls onto the table behind them, lies down diagonal across it so his head is in Harry's lap, and he closes his eyes and listens to them talk above him, voices coming close and then retreating away again, like the sound of wind, like waves.  Harry has a hand in Louis' hair, twirling little locks of it between his fingers, they move on to other subjects, and Liam is saying something about high school, about all the classes Louis cut.

"I thought you said you didn't talk to your friends from high school," Harry says.  He strokes the side of Louis' face softly.  "Lou?"

"We weren't friends back then," Liam says.

"We _hated_ each other," Louis chimes in, opening his eyes, throwing an arm across Niall's lap to point accusingly at Liam, who shrugs, biting back a smile.  

Harry looks at Liam, then down at Louis, and then at Liam again.  "Why?  _Really_?  Why?"

"I was a dick," Louis says, folding his arms across his chest and closing his eyes again.

"I mean--" Liam starts.

"I was a _dick_ ," Louis says.  "But in all fairness, you were annoying as fuck.  The instant anybody wanted to do anything _fun_ , you shut it down."

"How are either of those things different from now, dude?" Niall asks.

"We're older and wiser now," Liam says.

Louis nods, eyes closed.  "We can be more Zen."

"Oh, Jesus," Harry mutters.

Louis laughs, but as the conversation rolls on above him  -- they're talking about a girl Liam met on the train, the vote to raise the minimum wage, Niall's theories on the meaning of life, the pies they're going to eat when they get back inside --  as their voices weave together and apart again, he feels something old and familiar creep into his chest, that same sense he used to get, standing beside the ocean, that there's a distance he can never close: this is his home, here with Liam and Niall, here with the whirlwind of his family waiting for him inside by the yellow light, but it isn't Harry's.  He opens his eyes and looks up at Harry, his head ringed with the November night stars, amber glass beer bottle twinkling with the reflection of the lightbulb over the door, and reaches up to touch the shadow of his face.

  
*  


The whole Thanksgiving weekend, Harry stays.  There's a cold snap, the last of the leaves falling from the trees, breath white in the almost-winter air.  In the mornings, when he thinks Louis is still asleep, Harry slips out of the house to run; Louis imagines him loping through the quiet streets, gray morning mist, taking the routes he still remembers from the summer.  All day, they stay curled on the couch under the quilts, drinking endless cups of tea, eating leftover slices of pie.  The girls watch Christmas movies with them -- _Love Actually_ , _A Muppet Christmas Carol, The Santa Clause_ \-- and haul cardboard boxes of Christmas decorations down from the attic.  They make sandwiches out of the leftovers while the girls go shopping; in the backyard, the stray kittens are brave enough now to walk right up to any member of the family and purr against their legs, and Louis and Harry stand outside with a blanket around their shoulders, letting the cats eat the last scraps of turkey right out of their hands.  Before sunset, they change out of their pajamas and into their warmest clothes, and walk down to the beach, faces to the freezing wind.  They sit in the cold sand and watch the water, white spindrift off the tops of the dark waves, against the dark sky; they meet up with Liam and Niall in a vinyl-backed booth at Nina's and get drunk on Irish coffees and whiskey gingers, cheeks glowing under the red stained-glass light, they leave well after midnight and jog all the way home to keep warm.  Sunday morning, Harry makes sweet potato pancakes for the girls, while they wait patiently at the kitchen table; Sunday night he goes with them to buy their tree, in a parking lot across from a Shop-Rite, sweet cold smell of pine sap in the air, the glare of the strings of bare light bulbs overhead, Louis' hands in the pockets of Harry's coat, Louis' hands buried in pine needles and twine as he and Harry carry the tree into the house.  Harry kisses Louis goodbye on Monday morning, while Louis' on his way out the door to work, hair still wet from his shower.  It's the most time they've spent together since the summer.

They see each other three weekends in a row after that.  Louis finally learns what Harry wears when the weather turns cold (flannels over those thin t-shirts, flannels over flannels, unbuttoned halfway down his chest so Louis always asks "What's the point?  Aren't you freezing?" and a sharp black coat that Louis can hardly breathe to see him in it, a soft suede jacket that makes Louis want to burrow in against his body).  They learn just how much nothing they can talk about in the time it takes the Metro-North to get to New Haven.  The girls finally coax their mother into letting them bring the kittens in the house; they tell Harry how they caught them and brought them mewling in a cardboard box lined with faded baby blankets to the vet, how they had to keep them in the bathroom for two days after they were spayed, how they promised to fold the laundry and mop the floors to pay for the vet bills.  Harry brings Louis to the bakery where he's working now, where he worked in high school.  The ladies who work with him crowd around Louis with hugs; one of them pinches his butt.  "Don't worry," Harry says.  "She does that to me every morning."  They make beds together and turn down beds together, they swipe the fog off bathroom mirrors with the palms of their hands, and smile when their eyes meet in the reflections.  Louis thinks so much about the meaning of the word _home_.

  
*  


There are Christmas lights hanging off all the houses, casting pink and green glows across all the little square lawns at night, tinsel garlands strung across Ocean Avenue that rustle metallic in the cold wind coming off the beach, and when Louis falls asleep now it's to the pale shadowy rainbow blink of the lights the girls have taped up around the living room windows, and the string of big bulbs he spent the first day of his Christmas break up on a ladder tacking to the eaves with frozen hands, because the girls begged him to.  

"Softie," Harry says over the phone that night.  It's been hours but Louis' hands are still aching from the cold.

"Well, you know how it is when you're a kid," Louis says.  "You need all the same stuff you're used to, or else it's just not Christmas."  

"Is it really different when you're grown up?" Harry asks on the other end of the line.  "I think all that happens is you need different stuff."

The way the colors shift from one into another in the darkness is hypnotizing.  The timer is set to turn the lights on the roof off at midnight, but most nights he and Harry stay up talking till well after that, and Louis lets himself out the front door, concrete steps freezing under his bare feet, to switch the lights back on again.

  
*  


He loves that his birthday is this time of year, ever since he was a kid, he's loved how the lights and the glitter and the parties and the music feel like _his_ , how the whole world seems to celebrate with him.  Christmas music jangles over the loudspeakers at the mall, red-ribboned garlands and strings of white lights swinging overhead, as he and Fee weave through the crowds clutching each other's coatsleeves, sweating in the stuffy stores, stopping off at the food court for sodas so cold they make their teeth chatter again.  His mom shows him how to curl curling ribbon, and then he shows the twins, sitting on their bedroom floor, helping them wrap the cheap plastic presents they picked out at the gift fair in the school gym.  When he and Charlie finish _Their Eyes Were Watching God_ , reading side-by-side on her bed every lamplit evening as the dark settles against the windows, he takes her to Starbucks for peppermint hot chocolates.  He and Niall sneak gingerbread cookies from the front office at the school at lunch, and when the girls try to string their own garlands, he steals handfuls of popcorn right out of the bowl.  (They shout at him but they get bored fast, settle for a popcorn string they can drape once across the front side of the tree, then pile on the couch with the rest of the popcorn and a shaker of salt.)  He and Fee both eat candy canes by sucking them down to slightly menacing points, rainbow fruit-flavored for her, classic striped peppermint for him.  They make slice-and-bake cookies in the kitchen, tossing handfuls of sprinkles and dyed sugar over the dough till their mom yells at them, and for a week afterward red and green sugar crystals keep crunching underfoot.  The cats bat at the ornaments on the lowest branches, bells on their collars jingling.  He brings his mom with him to look at apartments at night, and every window he stares out he sees lights twinkling in the distance, white-gold glow shining in on him.  There's bits of wrapping paper everywhere, the kids at the school are always bouncing excited, and he hears music echoing from every corner of the town, carried on the cold wind from the beach up through the streets.  Harry calls him always before bed, a human advent calendar: every night something sweet as they count down the days. 

Christmas Eve Eve, as Harry calls it, they don't get to talk until late.  Louis is already half asleep, lulled by the rhythm of the Christmas light glow rising and falling, he can see it even with his eyes closed, when the phone buzzes on the mattress beside him.

They talk about nothing, about the presents they got for their sisters and New Year's Eve plans (a party a friend of Zayn's is throwing in the city), about all the cookies Harry has baked at the bakery this year and if the gift baskets he sent for the girls got there all right (they did), about the apartment Louis is signing a lease on in a few days and how much he misses Harry (with every fiber of his being).

"By the way," Harry says, "I'm _not_ going to be there on Christmas.  It's not going to be like Thanksgiving.  Don't expect me to surprise you."

Louis cradles the phone against his cheek.  "Or you could just be saying that, so I'll be even more surprised."

"No, Louis, listen," Harry says, his voice serious.  "I'm really _not_ going to be there."

"I know, I know."

"I wish I was."

"I know."

"Next Christmas," Harry begins.

" _I gave you my heart_ ," Louis sings softly to him.

"That's _last_ Christmas, idiot."

Louis shrugs into his pillow, even though Harry can't see it.  "Fine, see if I ever sing to _you_ again."

"Nooo," Harry whines.  "Sing to me always.  I love it when you sing."

"Mmhmm."

"I love _you_ ," Harry says.  "I love that you don't know the words to very popular Christmas songs.  I love everything about you, and I wish you were here.  I wish I could see you on your birthday, and Christmas, and every day after that."

"I know."

"No, this is the part where you say you love me back."

Louis laughs.  "You want me to lie to you?"

"How _dare_ you," Harry says, and Louis can imagine his forehead scrunched, his brows knit, feigning offense.

It gets quiet for a few minutes after that.  Louis watches the lights blinking, the room lighting up with blue or red or gold, then falling into darkness, every few seconds; he can hear one of the cats purring on the arm of the couch, and he reaches up to bury his hand in its fur, he can hear Harry breathing soft on the other end of the line.

"Hey, what do you want?" Louis asks.

Harry stays silent for a second.  "What, like for Christmas?"

"No, I already got your gift," Louis says.  "I mean like in general."

"I don't think I understand what you're asking," Harry says.  "Is something wrong?"

"No.  No, nothing's wrong."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Louis says.  "I guess I was just thinking.  It's just that time of year."

"Aha," Harry says.  "Well, I don't want anything.  I have everything I want."

The lights outside click off.  Louis reaches for one of the strings around the windows and switches it on, blue and pink and orange glow through the dark, when he looks up the colors are like a halo above his head.

"Hey," Harry says.  "Happy birthday."

  
*  


They christen the apartment with Chinese food and a bottle of cheap wine, on a cold day between Christmas and New Year's.  They sit on the floor with sesame chicken for Louis, Buddha's Delight for Harry, and a white cardboard carton of vegetable dumplings between them, drinking the sugary wine right out of the bottle, because there isn't actually any furniture in the apartment yet, besides a bedframe they put together themselves, a boxspring, a mattress made up with sheets and quilts Louis stole from his mom's house, and a single lamp sitting next to them on the floor.  Harry is in Jersey for five whole days, and tomorrow Louis' mom will bring the girls by to see the place, and they'll put up their handmade decorations -- he accidentally saw the Party Fair bag with a foil CONGRATULATIONS banner and rolled-up glitter-flecked posterboards tucked inside when he was digging through the linen closet the other day -- but tonight it's just the two of them, celebrating.

When they're full and sleepy and down to the last of the wine, sloshing in the bottom of the bottle, they hold hands while they walk to the bed, talking softly about whether Niall would eat tofu, Louis is already in sweatpants and a t-shirt and he curls up on top of the quilts cradling the wine against his chest, watching Harry strip down to his boxers and socks before he slips in under the blankets and pulls them up to his shoulders.  "Put the wine down," Harry whispers, and Louis rolls onto his back, dangles one arm over the side of the bed and sets the bottle on the floor.

"Bye, wine," Louis says softly.

"The wine will be okay," Harry says.  "Now cuddle me instead."

Louis smiles, rolls onto his side again and wraps his arms around the softness of Harry's blanket-covered body, feeling how solid he is even through the layers of soft cloth and cotton batting.  

"You want to get in under here?" Harry asks, pushing the edges of the blankets down a little.

Louis rests his head on Harry's shoulder, golden in the soft golden light: "No, this is good."  He closes his eyes and feels Harry's fingers comb through his hair.  It doesn't take him long to fall asleep, breathing slow against Harry's warm skin.

When he wakes again he's not sure what time it is, but the sky is all the way dark outside the windows, the lamp is turned off and he's alone on the bed.  The shape of the apartment in the dark is still unfamiliar, the last thing he remembers is a bright room with Harry in his arms, and at first he isn't sure where he is.  

He sits up.  The lease calls it a one-bedroom but it's basically a studio, and from the bed he can see Harry standing at the bare kitchen counter, the carton of dumplings in one hand, face lit white and blue by the screen of his phone.  "Hey," Louis says.

"Hey," Harry says, looking up.  "You're awake."

Louis nods.  "What time is it?"  

"Eleven-thirty."

"How long have you been up?"

"The whole time."  Harry shuffles back to the bed, leaving the phone and the dumplings out on the counter.  "I got hungry."

This time, when Harry pulls the blankets up, Louis lets himself be tucked in under them.  He was buzzed when he went to sleep, but he's cold sober now.  "Sorry I fell asleep on you," he says, lips against Harry's bare shoulder.  Without curtains on the windows, they're bathed in the light from the street, the pale sheen of streetlamps and the Christmas lights that survived the season, still hanging off the edges of roofs, long strings sagging in the middle, white glow reflecting off wet pavement; in the apartment it's gray blending into shadows, it makes their skin look like haze, like they might be able to reach their fingertips right through each other if they touched, but it gilds Harry's shoulders and cheekbones and the tendons of his own hands whiter than everything else, and Louis can see points of light like stars in Harry's eyes when Harry looks at him straight-on.

"Nah, it's fine," Harry says.  

"Yeah?"

Harry blinks, stars in his eyes gone and back again, and pats Louis on the leg: "I didn't really feel like fucking you anyway."

" _Dammit_ ," Louis says, and this is okay, this joking, this feels familiar; the cold and the ghost gray, they were just a trick of the light.

"Just because we _finally_ have a place all to ourselves," Harry says, "where we can get really loud--"

Louis straddles Harry's hips, presses himself against Harry's bare chest, pushes himself up and dips down again to get close to Harry's mouth.  "There's still time!"

Harry shakes his head.  "No, I'm sorry, you missed your opportunity."

"Lies!" Louis says, pulling back a bit.  He takes Harry's chin in his hand, and Harry is pliant as always, smiling sweetly up at him, but when he looks at Louis, it's like he's looking through him.  "You all right?" Louis asks.

"Yeah, fine," Harry says.  "Why?"

"Nothing.  You just seem...something."  Louis dips his head again to touch his lips to Harry's, lowers his body down onto Harry's own.

"Something, huh?" Harry asks, one hand against Louis' back to keep him close, one hand running through Louis' hair.

"Yeah," Louis says, leaning his head into Harry's touch, "you're really something."

Harry's chest rises and falls.  "That's what you tell me," he says.

Louis kisses along Harry's collarbone, over the birds inked into Harry's skin.

"Actually," Harry says, "do you mind if we don't?  I know it's the first time we've had a place to ourselves, but like--"

"It's fine," Louis says, sitting up.  "But seriously, are you okay?  You're never not in the mood."

"That's not true."

"You had _food poisoning_ that one time, and you were still trying to get me to fuck you."

"I didn't want to ruin your weekend!"

Louis laughs.  "It probably would have ruined my weekend more if you puked on me before I came, to be honest."

"But if I puked on you _after_ you came?" Harry asks, reaching up to push Louis' hair back.

"Then it probably would have been okay," Louis says.  He ducks his head, takes Harry's hand, pulls it to his own mouth and kisses the knuckles.  

Harry closes his eyes.

"You're thinking about something," Louis says.  "I can tell."

"I don't know," Harry says, eyes still closed, as if he's talking to the shadows in the corners of the room.  "I don't want it to sound like I'm not happy for you about the apartment, because I am."

"But?"

"But it's like -- it's just permanent, I guess.  That you're staying here."

Louis laughs again, shifts so he's sitting next to Harry instead of on top of him.  "Well, what, did you think I was going to move to Connecticut?"

Harry opens his eyes, scowling.  "Wow, you don't have to fucking _laugh_ about it."

"No, no, I don't mean like it's stupid," Louis says, crawling forward, lying down again, on his side so he can look at Harry.  "It's just, like -- Harry, I have a job here.  I have my family."

"I have a family too."

"I know that.  And you've also moved away from them before."

"So, what, you just assumed I would come here?"

Louis props himself up on one arm.  "No, actually, I never assumed anything.  I didn't even know you were like, _thinking_ about us being in the same place.  You never said anything."

"I've been saying it's a forever thing," Harry says.

"That doesn't mean 'Let's move in together right now.'  Harry, you knew I was getting this apartment for _weeks_.  How long were you thinking about this and not saying anything?"

Harry shrugs, crossing his arms over the quilt on his chest, pressing his lips together and looking away.

"Harry," Louis says softly, tugging at the blanket.

"No, I know," Harry says.  "I mean, you're right."

It's quiet for a minute, nothing but the sound of the thermostat clicking on, the warm air through the vents.

"You can ask for what you want, you know," Louis says quietly.

"I did," Harry says.  "I asked you at the end of the summer, what are we going to do, and you just, like, ignored it.  You broke up with me."

Louis shakes his head.  "Yeah, but that was because everything was ending, not because you were asking for anything.  That's different."

"Is it?"

"What does that mean?"

"What if I didn't just wait, when you weren't texting me?" Harry asks, finally looking at him again.  "What if I was like, 'I need you to talk to me right now.  I need you to not do this.'  Would you have answered me then?"

"Yes, of course."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"  Louis rolls his eyes.  "If you had said it like that, if you had said you _really_ needed me--"

Harry uncrosses his arms, starts to sit up.  "I said I wasn't out to all my family yet, and you said that was fine, and then you brought it up as a reason why we wouldn't last."

"Harry, that's--"

"Different?  Is it?"

" _Okay_ ," Louis says.  "Okay.  I'll try to be more…giving."

"No, _don't_ try to be," Harry says.  "I don't care if you are.  I like you the way you are.  Just don't, like…don't pretend I'm being poor insecure Harry afraid to ask for anything.  I _like_ being patient, I like letting other people take the lead, but I also do it because that's what _works_ with you.  If you were someone else, yeah, probably sometimes I _would_ cut to the chase a little more--"

"So do that," Louis says.

"Why?" Harry asks.  "Why do something I know is going to make you feel weird and uncomfortable and like you're being forced into something, when I can just chill out and let you do what you want?"

Louis leans forward.  "What if _you_ want something?"

"I don't want anything."

"It's not _normal_ to not want anything!"

"Why can't I just want things however they go?"

"Because how is that even a _want_?"

Harry lets out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh but isn't, his gaze darting around the room.  "Are you seriously arguing with me because I don't _want_ enough?  Who cares?  I'm fucking happy.  I don't really care where we end up.  How is it a _problem_ that I'm happy?"

"Because it's not…sustainable," Louis says.  "It can't just last like that."

"Why are you so worried all the time about what's sustainable?  Jesus.  Why can't you just like, enjoy what things are right now?"

Louis tips his head back.  "I can't just float through life and everything will be okay because my parents can take care of me."

"Oh, this again," Harry says.

"Yeah, this again."  Louis glances down at him, at the long form of his body tense beneath the blankets.  "I'm not trying to shit on you because you have money, I'm glad you do, I'm happy you never had to worry about it, but you have to realize that I don't just, like--"

Harry sits up, fast.  "Except money has nothing to do with this, Louis.  It's not like I'm asking you to, like, quit your job and not think about what will happen.  Having money doesn't mean that if anything goes wrong -- you know, like, if you break up with me, my parents being able to give me a car isn't going to _fix_ that.  I'm in this as much as you are."

"So you do want _something_ ," Louis says.

"What?"

"You said you want things however they go, but you don't want me to break up with you."

"I thought that was a given," Harry murmurs.

"The thing is," Louis says, "I don't think you're telling the truth.  Because you got _mad_ when I didn't want to talk about what would happen after the summer.  You got mad that I didn't help you figure out how we were gonna do this, and now you're saying you enjoy things the way they are, but you don't, you're upset that I have an apartment here.  I think you want _so bad_ for me not to break up with you, and it's so, like, in your nature for you to be patient, that it's really easy for you to pretend you're fine with everything.  It's really easy for you to pretend like there isn't anything you want."

Harry looks away.  "I don't know."

"And it's not all on you to be like, 'Well, Louis doesn't like being asked about things, so I never will.'"  Louis looks down at the patchwork, tracing the seams.  "I ask you to be more patient about stuff all the time.  I don't even ask sometimes, I just expect it, and like, this summer?  It wasn't fair how much I just, like, _assumed_ you would be there, no matter how much I pushed.  And anyone else, in your shoes, would have been like, 'Fuck it, it's over.'"

Harry glances back at him.  "Yeah, but--"

"I _know_."  Louis shifts closer to Harry on the bed, close enough to rest his chin on Harry's shoulder.  "I love you too.  And if you were ever as dumb as I was, which you won't be," he says, and in the wash of pale after-Christmas light and shadow he can see Harry's lips starting to curl up into a smile at that, "but if you were, I wouldn't just give up and let you fuck this all up either.  I'd try as hard as you did."

Harry turns his head, so his lips brush against Louis' when he speaks.  "I have a feeling you'd try a lot louder," he whispers.

"You love it," Louis answers, not a whisper at all.

Harry pushes him back down onto the bed, settles his weight on top of him.

"Wow, was that all just foreplay?" Louis asks, hitching his knees up, squeezing his thighs against Harry's body.

"Definitely," Harry says, lips touching Louis' throat, breath warm in the hollow between Louis' collarbones.

"It's only a year-long lease, you know," Louis says.

Harry butts his head against Louis' shoulder: "Yeah, talk dirty to me," and Louis laughs, throwing his head back on the pillow, and he's still laughing when Harry's fingertips press into his hips, when Harry catches the waist of his sweatpants and slides them down, when Harry reappears to rest his head against Louis' thigh.  He's still laughing, softer now, laugh like a breath, a laugh that turns into panting desperate against the darkness of the room, and when he looks down and Harry looks up, the stars are still in Harry's eyes, and it's a celebration again.

  
*  


In the morning, the room is bright with crisp winter sunshine when he opens his eyes, and Harry and the girls "surprise" him with the foil CONGRATULATIONS banner strung across the ceiling in the kitchen, and another, WELCOME HOME in pastel letters, that they're holding hanging between them at the foot of the bed when he wakes to the sound of their whispering and the warm weight of the twins lying across his legs.  There's leftover Christmas garland dangling in the doorway and posterboards with magic-marker good-luck messages taped to the bare walls, glitter shaking loose like snow and falling to the bare wood floor, glitter already somehow caught up in the sheets of the bed, everywhere the twins were sitting, glitter he'll be finding shiny flecks of for months to come, but right now he doesn't care: Charlie and Harry say "Hiiiiiiiii!" standing on either end of the banner, waving it gently, bits white sunlight reflecting off the foil and around the room, and when he sits up they rush forward at Fee's command, wrapping him in it, and he feels his sisters' arms around his waist, and hears Harry's happy roar in his ears.  

  
*  


It takes two days for Harry to finally ask: this time they're sitting on the bed in the buttery afternoon light, crosslegged, facing each other, eating the doughnuts they brought back from Krispy, where they took the girls for a grilled cheese lunch.  "Switch," Louis says, two bites into his chocolate glazed chocolate frosted, and Harry hands him his strawberry creme across the bed, taking the chocolate out of Louis' hand.  

"I was thinking," Harry says, "we should talk about, you know, the future."

Louis nods.  "Okay."

Harry reaches out to paint a smudge of powdered sugar across Louis' cheek.  "Do you think we could, like, talk about where we're going to live?"

"Sure," Louis says, rubbing at the sugar with the back of his hand, then licking the sweetness off his knuckles.

Harry nibbles at the chocolate frosting.  "I don't want us to do this just-weekends thing forever."

"Me neither," Louis says.

"I want us to live together."

"Me too."

"So," Harry says.

"So," Louis echoes.  

Harry grins, shaking his head.  "You're a dick."

"You love dicks."

"Fair point," Harry says.  "So I was thinking, I mean, the first question is, which one of us moves?"

Louis tips his head back to catch the sugar as he takes a bite of doughnut.  "Well, you want to stay in Connecticut, right?  By your family?"

Harry shrugs.  "I mean, I don't know, I was kind of just saying that the other night.  It's not like, a _plan_ I had.  I mean, to be honest, I guess I just figured I would go back to the city at some point."

"I guess we could do that," Louis says.

"Yeah, but _you_ don't want to move, right?"  Harry hands the chocolate over when Louis motions for them to switch again, lets Louis take one last lick of the strawberry filling before completing the exchange.  "I mean, it is kind of different with you and your family, the girls are little, they depend on you."

Louis picks a crumb out of the sheets.  "Well, there actually is something I haven't been telling you."

"What?" Harry asks, and his voice is low, serious.

"It's not _bad_ ," Louis says quickly.  "It's just -- remember when we were talking about how, in a couple years, Charlie's gonna be graduating, and like she's gonna be the first person in my family to go to college?"

"Yeah, she's a smartie," Harry says.

Louis looks up at him.  "Well, I might be the second."

"The second--"

"--person to go to college, yeah."

Harry breaks into a grin, leaning forward, then twists around, looking frantically for a place to put down the doughnut before saying, "Ah, fuck it," and dropping it on the floor so he can wrap his arms around Louis.

"Doughnut!" Louis cries as it splatters against the ground, wriggling his hand free from Harry's embrace to protect the chocolate frosted.

"I'll _make_ you more doughnuts," Harry says, not letting go.  He presses his chin hard into Louis' shoulder.  "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I haven't actually decided yet," Louis says.  "I started looking up like, tests I'd have to take and student loans and stuff and it's..."

Harry pulls back to look Louis in the eye.  "What?"

"Scary," Louis says.

"I'll help you," Harry says.  "I've done it before, I can help you.  And Charlie'll have done it before, too.  And Liam's done it."

Louis nods.

Harry leans against Louis again, nuzzling his neck.  "So does that mean you're gonna be a teacher?"

Louis leans himself against Harry too, resting his head against Harry's shoulder, closing his eyes and breathing in the warm cinnamon scent of the nape of Harry's neck.  "No, actually, Charlie's leaning toward Rutgers so she's been bringing home all these pamphlets, and there's one from the School of Social Work."

"Oh, that'd be good for you," Harry says.  He's speaking softly, but Louis can still feel his voice vibrating through his body.  "You're so good at like, making people comfortable."

"I'm very selfless," Louis says, taking a bite of doughnut and wiping his mouth on Harry's shirt.

Harry laughs, and Louis lets it shake his body too, Harry's shoulder bumping up against his chin, Harry's arms squeezing softly around him.

"Anyway," Louis says, "the point is, I might want to be in New Brunswick for four years."

"Okay," Harry says.

"And I know you were saying about maybe going back to school too, and you just said maybe you would move back to the city, and I was thinking New Brunswick has the train right into the city, so if you didn't want to live with me it would at least be easier to visit.  Or if we both went to the city, I could commute."

Harry sits up, but he doesn't let Louis go: he traces his fingertips down Louis' sides, following the curve of his ribs from his back to his front, lets his hands rest on Louis' hips.  "And you say _I_ always have a plan."

Louis smiles, shrugging.  "I have plans sometimes."

"Well, I don't know what I want to do with myself yet," Harry says, eyeing Louis' doughnut.  Louis holds it up to Harry's mouth, so Harry can take a bite.  "I know I had all these big dreams about making a difference, but I fucking like working at the bakery.  I'm good at it, and I make people happy."

"So be a baker," Louis says.

"I might."  Harry wipes his mouth.  "But I can do that anywhere.  So like, New Brunswick sounds good."

"Are you sure?" Louis asks.  "Or are you just going along with--"

"I'm _sure_.  I don't care _what_ bakery I work in.  I don't know yet if I want to go to school for it, or like, what."

Louis laughs.  "They have baker schools?"

"Yes," Harry says, kissing him on the cheek.  "Culinary schools have like pastry programs."  He tilts his head, kisses Louis' other cheek next.  "Or like, if I want to open my own place," a kiss on Louis' forehead, "I could go to business school," and another kiss on the tip of Louis' nose.  He touches his forehead to Louis' and stays there, so close Louis' eyes can't even focus when he looks at him.

"I don't have enough room to eat my doughnut," Louis whispers.

Harry's laugh is like a force of nature this close, like getting bowled over by an ocean wave, and Louis relaxes into it like he would the water: a blur of pink and white smile, the shadow of his jaw as Harry tips his head back, and then Louis closes his eyes so there's only the sound.  

"So then New Brunswick," Louis says when he opens his eyes again, and he breaks the last bit of the doughnut in half, and offers a piece to Harry.  "Like, if I get into school."

"Well, that's the thing," Harry says, taking his half and nibbling at the edges, while Louis shoves the remainder into his mouth all at once.  "I don't want to wait until your lease is up, though.  I don't want to keep doing this for a year."

"I _can't_ just move to Connecticut," Louis says around a mouthful of doughnut.

"I know," Harry says.  "That's why I was thinking I would move here for a while.  If you want me."

"Of course I want you," Louis says, "But is that what _you_ want?  What about the bakery?  What about all your ladies?  What about your parents?  Places don't really hire around here during the winter."

Harry nods.  "It's what I want.  I like the bakery, I'll miss everybody, but I don't have anything there I'm _committed_ to.  And I have some money saved up, my parents haven't been making me pay for anything, really.  That can cover my rent for a while, if I can't find a job."

Louis rolls his eyes.  "I'm not gonna make you pay rent."

"Yes, you are."

"All right, fine," Louis says.  "If you're sure."

"I am."  Harry looks down at the little chunk of doughnut left in his hand, and breaks it into even smaller halves, holding one out toward Louis.

"Wow, that's symbolic," Louis says.

"What?"

"We each get one last piece of doughnut.  I shove it in my face while you eat yours patiently, and instead of finishing yours you break it in half so I can have some more."

"Yeah," Harry says, "but remember it was _your_ doughnut to begin with.  The only reason you gave me a piece was I threw mine on the floor so I could hug you."

Louis squints.  "I don't know if the symbolism of that works as well."

"It means we both sacrifice in our own ways," Harry says, leaning in.  "And we don't even realize it, and we keep wanting to because we're in love."

  
*  


They don't have exactly the New Year's Eve they planned.  The friend of Zayn's throwing a party turns out to be a girlfriend, and she's an ex-girlfriend now, and there's no place for them to go.  They get onto a packed train anyway, Harry and Louis and Liam and Niall, the four of them standing against the stainless steel doors: holding each other's hands and arms so they don't fall over every time the train jerks to a station stop, staring smiling out the windows as the train crosses the wetlands and cuts through the sunset, blazing orange light from above the horizon, blazing orange light reflected up from the water below.  In the city it's like they're let loose, they run laughing through Penn Station, through the subway passages, through the streets with the rainbow lights still strung along the storefronts, at Zayn's apartment they hug him all four at once as soon as he opens the door.

They go to a bar in Greenpoint, tinsel and tiny sparkling lights everywhere, they take over a table in the corner, benches with beat-up velvet cushions, warm from the black-painted radiator against the wall, they strip off their jackets and scarves and chew the ice in their drinks.  Louis gets drunk enough that he can't remember half the night as it happens.  He's at the table and then he's in the middle of the crowded room, all alone, he thinks he's on his way to the bathroom.  He's at a jukebox and he turns around and Harry's there, smiling, arms around him: "Don't worry, I've got you."  He's at the table again, Niall next to him with a hand on his shoulder, saying, "Man, you are _wasted_.  We gotta get you out more often.  You are a _lightweight_."  Liam appears with a pitcher of water and a plastic cup, then a box of pizza that he lets Louis dig into first.  When the rest of the boys go out for fresh air (Liam) and a smoke (Harry and Niall), Zayn stays at the table to watch over Louis, with an arm draped gently around his shoulders.  They have him back to just buzzed by 11:30, when the waitresses start coming around with party hats and and plastic beads and noisemakers that they're told not to use before midnight, and he follows them into the crowd when the bartenders turn all the TV to a channel showing Times Square, he hears them all counting down from ten with his eyes fixed on the live feed of the crystal ball, he feels Harry's fingers fist into his shirt for the kiss, and he keeps his eyes open when the cheering starts and Harry's lips touch his and the phone begins buzzing in his pocket, because when this is a memory he wants to remember how everyone was here: Zayn with his hands in some blonde girl's hair, Niall leaning over to kiss Liam blushing right on the mouth, the texts from his sisters waiting for him to see, and Harry.

"Happy New Year," he says, as he and Harry stand chest-to-chest, foreheads touching, and he closes his eyes: when this night is all a memory, he'll still be in Harry's arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Isabel, Britt, and Kate for the read!
> 
> I've seen this story listed in a couple rec posts on Tumblr -- thanks so much! And please leave a comment if you rec this, I would love to know!


End file.
